


Peter Maximoff-the start of something greater

by rachelrose40



Series: X-men expanded universe [1]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fluff, Hurt Peter Maximoff, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Marvel Universe, Messing With The Time Line, Sibling Bonding, This is the start of a whole universe, Whump, X men - Freeform, everyone has their powers though, fun with superpowers, legal trial, peter maximoff - Freeform, quicksilver - Freeform, will be long so stick with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 31,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22990618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelrose40/pseuds/rachelrose40
Summary: Peter Maximoff was a mutant, shocking I know, but it happened somehow. Super speed is great, but comes with its downsides. Maybe it would be better if he wasn’t a raging kleptomaniac, but oh well...some things, both bad and good come for Peter, some his fault, others not so much. But whatever the cause, this is one wild ride. Warning: risks of whiplash.The start of my x men fanfiction world, Peter Maximoff story! More information inside, check it out, please.
Series: X-men expanded universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1713868
Comments: 41
Kudos: 51





	1. Not again

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: okay guys, welcome to my story. I love x men, obviously, especially Peter Maximoff, but I have been disappointed with how the movies fulfill his story arc. This is set in modern day, everyone has their correct powers, X-Men apocalypse will happen, but after this story. The thing I want to make clear is that 1) this is not like other AUs, it is closer to small adjustments. 2) I do use OCs, but sparingly and they are NOT the main characters. 3) this is a peter centric fic, but it will expand into a whole team fic, so stick around if you want that. And lastly, I am a Christian writer, so there will be no smut, lots of fluff, but no smut and limited cursing. BUT, bad things do happen to characters, A LOT, so be warned. I like good plots, which is why I’m doing this. :) I hope you all enjoy. I will update either once or twice a week. Comment if you enjoy or have suggestions! (I own none of the characters you recognize)  
> common notation:
> 
> ...... = scene change, or time skip. 
> 
> ‘ = thoughts 
> 
> that’s all folks! Without further ado, I give you this story...

Peter bounced his leg on the sticky floor of the DMV. the attendant took a painfully slow time looking for his test results, even by normal people standards. Peter has gone through his entire “waiting time” playlist without skipping any songs and she still hadn’t come out of the back room.   
so much for a quick stop to try to get his license. Again. 

“Ah, here it is.” She said as she slid the folder across the counter. Peter hopped up from his seat and grabbed the file out of the woman’s hand. 

“Finally.” He muttered under his breath as he flipped the folder open. The stark red letters: FAILED met him. “Dang it!” He refrained himself from cursing when he saw the ‘reason for failure’ column. ‘Reckless abandon of the speed limits.’ Go figure. He slid the file back to the attendant and headed for the door. the attendant flipped the folder open and peter heard her sigh. 

“better luck next time sweetie, you’ll get it eventually.” 

“Sixth time in a row; a new record I’m sure.” He scoffed, but gave the woman a wave on his way out as slipped on his earbuds. (Song starts: HELP, by the beetles.) of course it was the speed limits, how could it be anything else? Whatever, he didn’t need a car when he could run.

Hands in his pockets, Peter stepped to the side of the curb and looked both ways. A car came from both directions, far too close to be able to make it across in time. Peter smiled to himself and stepped out into the street in the path of the cars. After a second of standing there he looked to his left. The car was frozen in place two feet from him. He smiled again and walked across the street to a grocery store. He slipped inside the gap between the closing automatic door and out again, this time carrying three boxes of Twinkies. With his free hand he pulled a pair of goggles from his sliver jacket pocket and slid them over his eyes. After a quick second to adjust his grip on his snacks he took off in a blur of silver leaving a small scorch mark on the sidewalk. 

Peter skipped up the steps of his house and slowed his speed before opening the door. The cars on the street resumed their speed as Peter unlocked the door and hopped inside to stash his treats. 

“Peter? Is that you?” His mother called from the kitchen. 

“Yes, mum!” 

“How’d the test go?” She asked innocently. He froze at the top of the stairs that lead to his basement bedroom. She knew very well what happened, otherwise peter would have come in screaming about how he got it. 

“Umm, not great. Still didn’t pass.” He answered reluctantly, all of a sudden fascinated by the flaking paint on the wall. 

“Dang it, peter! Why?!” His mum stepped into the living room wiping her hands on a towel and crossed her arms. Peter refused to look at her; he knew what that expression looked like by now. 

“Speed limits.” He mumbled and escaped down to his room before his mom could catch him. At least he had that. No one could ever catch him.   
.........................  
“PETER! You’re going to be late! It’s five till eight!!” His mom yelled down the stairs. Peter jumped out of his bed.

“I won’t be late! Calm down.” He sped to get dressed and ran up the stairs. 

“But it’s-LORD, PETER WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT DOING THAT?! Ugh. But it’s only five till, even for you that’s pushing it.”

“No it’s not mum. Is breakfast ready?” Peter peeked past her shoulder to look at the table. Mrs Maximoff sighed and put her hands on her hips.

“What’s left is yours. Jess left for school twenty minutes ago.” 

“Thanks mum.” He turned to run off but she caught his sleeve. 

“Be careful. No powers in public, remember?”

“Mum, they can’t even see me.” He whined, trying to pull his arm from her grip. 

“You don’t know that. Stop two blocks from school and don’t use your powers until to go to get lunch.” 

He groaned and looked at her with puppy dog eyes. She sighed again. 

“Please don’t give me crap about this peter. You know how dangerous it’s gotten. People don’t like mutants. Don’t give them a reason to not like you.” 

“Okay, okay. No powers in school. Bye mum.” He kissed her cheek, but she wouldn’t feel it until he was long gone. 

As his mother instructed he slowed to a normal pace two blocks from school and ran at a boring seven miles per hour the rest of the way.   
He checked his watch as he bolted through the halls to his first class: American history. 

“Crud.” 8:03. He was late. Again. He skidded to a stop right outside the door and winced at the dull, loud squeak the hinges made as it creeped open. 

“Mr. maximoff, how good of you to join us.” His teacher, Mr Simmons, showed no expression in his voice, but only raised an eyebrow. Peter internally groaned. He was in for it now, even so, he could try to get off a little easier...

“I was only four minutes late. That’s not that bad.” Peter said, trying out the situation. He was on thin ice, but it was a necessary risk. 

“If it was a first offense, yes, but unfortunately you have been late to my class almost half the semester.” His teacher forced a smile and glanced down at his papers. “Detention this afternoon.” 

“Aww, come on!” 

“No arguments please, we only have a few weeks left in the school year.” Mr. Simmons said without looking up. “Take a seat.” 

Peter glared at him. What was this guy’s deal anyway. “Exactly! What’s the big deal?!” 

“Peter, sit down.” His tone shifted slightly from being monotone, which is Mr Simmons language meant he was Bordering on mad. Peter scowled and slumped to his seat. The whole class turned to watch his progress down the row, as they did to any kid who was late. Even if they didn’t mean to, you had to watch the late kid walk to their seat, it was sort of an instinct. Unfortunately for him, Peter was pretty much always the late kid. 

The seconds dragged by, shortly Peter’s leg started bouncing as Simmons droned on in his lecture. He had stopped trying to contact his fidgeting, it was useless and usually just ended up with him twitching and launching something into the nearest wall. 

“Dude, can you stop that?” The girl whispered out of the corner of her mouth halfway through class. Peter looked down at his leg bouncing again the floor and then back at the girl. 

“No.” He said with a tiny grin and had to bite his lip to keep from laughing when the girl pulled a face at his response. She definitely wasn’t expecting that answer. 

The hour long class felt like it lasted a day, but finally the bell rang and he escaped into the mass of students in the hall. 

The corridor buzzed with gossip, but Peter had a one track mind. It was rare that that ever happened, but right now he could only thing one thing “run.”   
He pushed his way past the chaos to make it to the clean spring air. Okay maybe not exactly clean, but the it was nothing compared to the inside of the school. 

“Just a quick lap around the school won’t hurt, right?” He whispered to himself as he looked around. “Yeah, no problem at all.” With a deep breath He sped around the school five times and skidded to a stop on the steps. Sighing, satisfied, he turned back to face the halls. No one had seen him. If they had blinked they would have missed it. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a bit uneasy. He hadn’t technically gone against what his mum said. Right? It’s not like anyone saw...what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her and it’s not like anyone could tell her...right? Peter tried to shake of the paranoia creeping up on him. He was too fast for anyone to have seen him, he kept telling himself, but I’m the back of his mind the thought still plagued him “what if they did.”

“Only two classes till lunch, only two classes til lunch.” He told himself again and again on his way to chemistry. His stomach protested with a loud gurgle. “Great.” He stopped by his locker and downed three granola bars, not his choice in snack, but it gave him the most energy. He’d give anything for some Twinkies right now. With another glance at his watch he made his way to class. 9:09. Six minutes to spare. 

...........

“Next!” The lunch lady called out. Jess slid her tray to the woman, who plopped Mac and cheese on her plate. 

“Thanks.” Jess said as an afterthought, her brain busy searching the crowd for a familiar sliver head of hair. “Peter!” She called out over the den. 

“Yo.” Her brother motioned her over to his table where he was sitting by himself, he always sat by himself after his powers kicked in, unwrapping the first of seven burgers. Grinning to herself she strode over to him and sat down. Without looking up he handed her a burger. 

Jess glanced from the hamburger to Peter. “Thanks...did you pay for these?” She asked tentatively. Peter froze mid chew for a second before shaking his head. 

“Nope...don’t tell mum.” Peter said with is mouth full. Jess looked at the burger again and shrugged. 

“Alright, but you owe me one.” She paused to take a bite of her sandwich, trying to think of what she could squeeze out of this. “How about you take me to the arcade this afternoon? You’re buying.” 

Peter groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, but I’ve got detention.” 

“Again? Dude, Why this time?” 

“I was late.” 

Jess facepalmed. “Okay, I fail to understand how someone that fast can be late.” 

“I don’t know either, it just happens, I loose track of time.” Peter shrugged and started unwrapping the next burger. “I wouldn’t count yourself out yet, you could still get powers.” 

“That would be sweet.” Jess grinned. “Can you give me a ride home?” 

“I told you I have detention, I’m stuck here.” 

“Yeah, but it would only take a second...” she said as she pulled puppy dog eyes on him. Their effectiveness varied, but it was worth a shot. 

“Knock it off.” He laughed and nudged her shoulder. “It’s hard enough not speeding everywhere, mum said I can’t.” 

“Fine, I guess I’m walking the five miles back.” She half pouted but was trying not to laugh. 

“Why don’t you just take the bus?” 

“It takes longer than walking, and it stinks. Literally.” 

“Heh, just like your face?” Peter grinned at Jess as he cleaned up from lunch. 

“No, just like your room. It smells of decaying Twinkies and video games.” She smirked back at him

“Haha, very funny, my room isn’t that bad, you should see the boys locker room.” 

“Ew, no thanks.” She joined him in cleaning up and the both headed to the halls out of the cafeteria roar. The bell rang shortly after marking the time for splitting ways. 

“See you in PE?” Jess asked, turning around and walking backwards to face peter. 

“Wouldn’t miss it.” He called over his shoulder right as she disappeared into the crowd.  
————————————————  
The boys locker room did stink and Peter hated it. Not only because of the stink, but he wasn’t exactly the most popular kid anymore. The silver hair and hyperactive personality drove people away. The nice ones anyway, the annoying jocks were a different story. Ironically enough, his school gym sneakers were his only ones that remained unscorched. He opened his locker to retrieve said sneakers, but they were gone. 

“Okay, who took my shoes?!” Peter turned on the rest of the boys with a groan. Most of them ignored him, some of them snickered. “Where’s Brock? Did he have something to do with this?” More snickers and sideways glances. “Guys, come on, my mum will kill me if I loose another pair of shoes.” No one replied, so he slipped on his normal sneakers and trudged out to the track. 

“Everyone line up!” The coach blew his whistle a few times summoning the high schoolers to the field. The teens made their way outside and grouped up by the track.

“Maximoff, where are your shoes? You loose them again?” A tall, dark haired kid behind him sneered, not even looking down at Peter’s feet. 

“Give them back Brock.” Peter hissed as he spun around and poked the guy in the chest. Not that it helped much. It was hard to intimidate a dude who was six inches taller than you. 

“Who said I had them?” Brock said, continuing to smirk down at the speedster. Brock was a nuisance for any of the guys in school who he thought posed a threat to him. Those who didn’t join him were immediately his enemies, hence his distaste for Peter. Even since they were both on the track team in middle school they had been competing with each other. It was only when Peter’s powers kicked in that Brock was able to “win” 

“We both know you do, can’t you make this easy?” Peter growled. Oh, what he’d give to beat the pants off this guy, but without his powers he couldn’t take him. 

Brock shrugged, pretending to be uninterested in the whole situation. “Depends what you’d pay to get your shoes back.” 

“They’re my shoes! You’re acting like a preschooler!” 

Brock shrugged again. “It’s up to you, do you want the shoes back or not?” He said. Peter scowled trudged off to join the semi-same kids at the track. If he spent too much more time with Brock he would speed-slap the stupid smirk off his face. But of course he couldn’t do that, much to his distaste. 

The coach blew the whistle a minute later and everyone halfheartedly started their laps. Except Peter, he took off in front of everyone else. After a minute of running a voice came from his elbow. Completely out of breath, Jess sprinted as hard as she could to catch up with Peter as he began speeding up, working out his frustration as he always did. Running. 

“Peter! Watch your speed!” Jess gasped behind him, but was struggling to keep up with him as he got faster and faster. Peter cursed under his breath, and put on the breaks. 

“Thanks.” He said with a glance in her direction. She was red in the face, but was grinning at him. 

“No...problem.” She managed between breaths. “Anyway...I’m gonna go.” Peter nodded as she dropped behind him, finally able to get a full breath. 

Peter kept several paces in front of everyone else, as he always did. He had to be one of the only kids in the school who really enjoyed their laps. Some people thought it was weird, but he didn’t really care by this point. No one hung out with him anymore, besides Jess, so who cares if they hated him, right?

After PE everyone hit the showers. The heat of May took its toll. It was a mad dash to get to the showers first. Peter won. He made sure to lock his shoes in his locker before heading inside. He really didn’t want to run home barefoot.  
After PE came the last class of the afternoon: current events.


	2. The end of a sucky day and the start of another

“Mutants. A genetic defect that turns humans into something else. Something beyond. Something...terrifying. One in every 50,000 people develop mutations, some utterly alien...” the documentary flickered slides of mutants from around the world, of all different ages.  
Peter was slumped on his desk watching the video, anger boiling inside of him with each slide. There was a little girl with butterfly wings, a couple teenagers with multi colored hair throwing bricks through a window, and several other exaggerated scenes as the voice over continued on: “As mutants become more powerful the question has been raised: how far will we let this go until action must be taken.....though most mutants have a physical manifestation of their powers some blend in will the crowd and can go undetected, making them some of the most dangerous of all.” Peter scoffed at the ‘informational video’ and mumbled to himself: “Ohh yeah, we’re totally monsters.” He was starting to get a headache from this mess. Man, he really wanted a Twinkie. 

He left class in a bad mood and headed for detention. Today was shelving books in the library. So interesting. Peter took his time shelving each book; trying to make the time pass faster, but was twitching by the end of it. After an hour he nearly exploded out the front doors of the school to make his escape. With a glance both ways he slipped on his ear buds and took off for his house. Running home to the sweet sound of AC/DC. 

When he unlocked the door Jess was sitting on the living room floor watching TV. 

“Hey.” He said and threw his backpack in the corner by the door. 

“Hey.” Jess called back, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Was it boring?” 

“Ohh yeah...what are you watching?” Peter asked as he sat down beside her after a quick trip to the basement to get a box of Twinkies. Quality snacking at last. 

Jess squinted at the screen and leaned back on her elbows. “Something about an explosion at a school in Florida, there isn’t a sign of a bomb though, and there was a kid still inside.” 

Peter nearly spit out his Twinkie. “Dude, what? Is he alive.” 

Jess looked over with a slight grin. “Yeah, and get this. He’s not even hurt.” 

“A mutant?”

Jess shrugged and went back to watching the screen. “That’s what I’ve been thinking. Why does everyone else get cool powers and not me?” 

“It’s not as easy as it looks, Jess, at least you don’t have to eat like a horse.” Peter said through a mouthful of Twinkie. Jess made a face. 

“Well you don’t get fat.”

“True...did you already go to the arcade?” 

Jess shook her head. “Mum says I can’t without you. So no. She also wants you to clean the kitchen. Twinkie me.” 

Peter held his Twinkies protectively. “You are not worthy of the holy snack cake.” He declare. “Especially because you didn’t do the kitchen.” 

“Pfft, she told you, because I wasn’t the one that woke up five minutes before school. You can get it done in a blink, what’s the big deal?” Jess smirked at him and held out her hand for a Twinkie. 

“It doesn’t feel like a blink to me, that’s the big deal.” Peter mumbled, but handed over a Twinkie and disappeared from beside her to do the kitchen. His mouth fell open when he fully processed the state of the room. He had seen it that morning, but somehow it didn’t seem this bad. It was a mess: dishes everywhere, the floor needed sweeping, and the trash needed taking out. 

“Sheesh.” He sighed to himself and started working, taking care not to drop anything. Glass most certainly broke if dropped in super speed, as he learned the hard way the first time he unloaded the dishwasher using his powers. In his time he was done in thirty minutes, in regular time, a second. 

“You want to hit the arcade now?” He asked as he reappeared beside his sister. Jess jumped a little, but turned it into a weird side-lean to cover up that he had surprised her. Peter grinned in spite of himself. No matter how long he had his powers, sneaking up on Jess was the best part.

“Don’t you have homework, like, algebra or something?”

“Algebra two, and I can get it done in just two seconds, come on, I’ve been looking forward to it all day.” Peter whined a little, leaning on the doorway. Jess sighed dramatically as she hopped up and flipped off the TV. 

“Ohh, fiiiiine, but you have to run us there.” She said as she pulled her hair up into a pony tail. Super speed had a way of tangling her hair. she had learned that the hard way. 

“Okay, fiiiiiiiine.” Peter smiled at her as she froze in place. He slid on his goggles and whooshed them both to the arcade. It wasn’t that far, even if it was Jess was pretty much weightless when he ran. Something about force equals weight times speed or something like that. He didn’t really care how it worked, it worked and that’s all Peter needed to know. 

He pulled Jess into the ally next to the arcade and watched time speed up around him. Jess snapped out of her stiff position, the unattended bike he had whipped past fell over, and the general sounds of the city buzzed back to life. 

“Awesome.” Jess breathed and smoothed her hair down. She looked up at Peter as he took his goggles off and pocketed them. “I challenge you to a game of packman.”

Peter scoffed “You’re on. You can’t beat a guy with super speed.” 

“You know you get annoyed when the game doesn’t respond fast enough, I can beat you easily.” Jess elbowed him as they turned the corner of the ally and arrived in front of Barnum’s Circus, the best local arcade they had, or that least the maximoffs’ favorite, mainly because of the owner: Mr Barnum, and the skating rink he had inside. 

“I’d like to see you try.” Peter challenged and pushed the door open with a small giggle from the overhanging bell. Mr. Barnum looked up from the counter and waved at them as he always did. 

Peter and Jess waved back as they made their way to the counter to buy tokens. When Mr Barnum turned his back, Peter absentmindedly reached for a slinky from the prize counter. Jess slapped his hand just in time as the old man turned around. 

“Here you two are, have fun.” Barnum said and passed them the tokens. Jess thanked him, but Peter couldn’t bring himself to. He didn’t mean to almost take the slinky, it just kinda happened. He would steal Twinkies and crap from big store chains without a second thought, sure, but stealing from Mr Barnum was something else entirely. He had always been so nice to them, it was kind of like stealing from his dad. If he had a dad that is. 

Jess tugged on his sleeve and pulled him over to the pac-man machine. Peter sighed and tried to shake off the guilt building up inside him. He would need all of his focus for this  
Then the game was on. An hour later the score was: Peter-6, Jess-8.  
A text from their mother marked the end of the game. 

“Don’t deny it, I won.” Jess gloated as they wade their way to the door. Peter rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath about hating slow controllers. 

“Bye Peter, bye Jess!” Mr Barnum, smiled at them. The two smiled back and waved as they reached the door. He was one of their oldest friends, literally, at 70 years old he still ran the arcade. He didn’t mind Peter’s strange hair or hyperactive personality, not like most older people he met. They, like half of his teachers, tended to get on to him for fidgeting, which made him want to do it more, just out of spite. 

“Bye Mr Barnum!” The two called in unison and slipped out the door. The smell of gasoline hit them, along with the tang of garbage from the ally dumpsters. It was DC, they were used to it by now. 

“The game didn’t respond fast enough.” Peter insisted, pulling the goggles on. “And I’ll win next time.” 

“Pfft, that’s want you always say, I won this time and I’ll win next time.” 

“Yeah, yeah, suuure you will.” He didn’t give Jess a chance to reply, in a blink they were home.  
————————————————  
The next morning as peter approached his locker he noticed a piece of paper that was stuck to the front. It read: 

If you want your shoes back meet us behind the bleachers at 12:15. 

He bunched up the paper and shoved it in his pocket. Of course Brock would want to make him buy his shoes back, the jerk. Peter yanked the locker door open, packed his books inside and slammed it closed before the contents can tumble out onto him. With a sigh, he trudged into the crowd. This was going to be an amazing day, he could tell. 

“Us?” He thought. “Great.” Brock would have his gang of followers with his, that couldn’t be good. Peter dodged past a few students to slide into his closing classroom door. Calculus was his least favorite class, not because it was math, but because it was an hour and a half long rather than an hour as all the other classes were. Each second felt exponentially longer. In the last ten minutes his legs always started aching, a feeling that crept up his torso if he sat still much longer than that. Not only was it the longest class, but Mrs Rickey was the only teacher that didn’t allow his fidgeting. She called it excessive and rapt his knuckles if she caught him bouncing his leg. He watched the clock. 11:55. With a sigh he looked around the room for anything interesting. Nothing, as always, it was the stupid calculus room for crying out loud, it wasn’t exactly the most interesting this in the world...that spider web in the corner was kinda cool though. 

“Peter?” His head snapped back to the front of the room, to where Mrs Rickey stood with a look of pure annoyance. 

“What?” He asked, trying to figure out what he had missed. Stupid spider web, no, stupid powers. His eyes darted to the whiteboard then back to Rickey’s face just as she opened her mouth to answer. Oh, that’s was not a good look for her in super speed mode. 

“I asked you the answer to number thirteen of the homework, you did do the homework, didn’t you?” 

Peter fought the urge to use his powers to steal a look at the papers on her desk for the answer, he did have a few seconds to work with though. He glanced at the board and ran the calculations. “Yeah, yeah, I did...umm, negative two and four.” Peter said, trying not to grin. That was something else Mrs Rickey didn’t like. 

“......correct” Mrs Rickey barely finished the word before she turned back to the whiteboard and wrote the answer. 

“Whew.” Peter huffed and tried to focus on the lecture, it was pretty much impossible though. Why did she have to talk to sloooooow. He glanced at the clock again after five minutes. 11:57. 

“What?!” Peter said out loud and rocked back in his chair, sending the The front legs of his chair shooting off the ground. 

“Is there something overly interesting about the quadratic formula?” Mrs. Rickey asked, bordering on amused. 

“Huh? No, it’s just; I didn’t realize the time.” 

“Do you need to be somewhere?” 

“No, it just should be...later.” 

“Not this again, Peter. It’s not going to kill you to be in class for ten more minutes.” Her voice seemed to slow down as she pronounced every letter of “ten minutes.” Peter resisted groaning. 

Ten minutes dragged on and on, the bell bringing Peter’s saving grace. anticipation built in him as it got closer to 12:15. He made his way to the instructed spot; attempting to not look suspicious. After a few long minutes Brock and his posey filed in around Peter.

“Give me my shoes, Brock.” Peter demanded automatically, failing to realize the two teens approaching behind him as well. He just wanted to get out of there with his shoes as soon as possible. 

“Hold up. I wanted to talk about something first.” Brock said. His tone didn’t sound friendly, or even taunting. It sounded almost angry. “That video in class yesterday got me thinking. Who do I know who might be a mutant. And I got ta say, you fit every box. When we were what, twelve? You dropped off the track team after a race where you magically appeared at the finish line. And on that same day you showed up with grey hair, you’ve always been weird and crazy. I put it together maximoff, you’re a mutant, aren’t you?” 

“First of all, it’s silver and second, I just want my shoes. Don’t make me kick your ass to get them.” Peter snapped. He couldn’t go down this path of conversation. Anything involving mutants he tried to avoid, especially the riots and protests, but even topics like this could be dangerous. 

“If you weren’t a mutant you would have said so.” Brock continued, getting in a little closer. 

“Just give me the shoes!” Peter demanded, his face growing hot. 

“Only If you admit you’re a freak.” 

“I’m not a freak, Brock!”

“Pfft, says you.” Brock shoved Peter backwards, nearly running him into the bleachers. He caught himself just in time, but only now realized how trapped he was. The bleachers held in one side, and the boys blocked off all the others. The only way to get out would be to plow past them, something he couldn’t do without using his powers. 

“You don’t want to pick a fight with me.” Peter hissed, trying to hide that he was actually scared. Brock scoffed. 

“What ya gonna do? Use your freaky powers? Haven’t you noticed your outnumbered? You’re not going anywhere mutie.” 

That word, oh that word, Peter hated it already. “That’s where you’d be wrong.” He said as confidently as he could. Peter watched the boys for an escape, trying to make his words come true, but his mother’s voice kept nagging in the back of his brain: no powers in public. 

“Ohh shut up.” Brock said as he waved his posey on. “You’ve got no where to run anyway.”


	3. No powers in public

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock is a jerk, and peter tries a little too hard to listen to him mum. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I hope you’re enjoying it. Leave any feedback, I enjoy constructive feedback as well. All I ask is that you word it tactfully. :) I should update again on Monday, I’ll see you all then.

Peter stepped back, but hit the bleachers. Oh crap. The others boys were crowding in now. One threw a punch.   
Peter ducked, barely, and turned to run only to slam into one of the other guys who grabbed the back of his collar. 

“Let me go!” Peter yelled, trying his best to wriggle out of the guy’s grip, but to no avail. A quick punch to the gut made him stop to gasp for breath. 

“I thought you were running away.” Brock called from somewhere Peter couldn’t see. 

“Shut up” Peter rasped, not nearly loud enough for him to hear. Before he could fully catch his breath he was having to block blows as well as he could, which was pretty hard when it was five against one. Peter managed alright, sort of, until one of the kids got past his guard and hit him square in the nose. 

Peter automatically grabbed his nose. His eyes started watering so much he could barely see, he could feel his nose bleeding onto his hands, but didn’t really care at this point. The main thing he needed to focus on was getting out of there. 

The opportunity didn’t come for another minute at least, but finally he shoved two guys backwards and ran for it. Willing himself not to slip into super speed, he bolted from the bleachers, blood dripping from his nose into his Pink Floyd shirt the whole way. That wouldn’t be coming out. He made it back into the school, out of breath from getting almost beaten to a pulp, and disappeared into the mass of teens. 

He pushed hurriedly through the students into the bathroom to check the damage. He squinted at the mirror for a second; that’s definitely not what he looked like that morning. The right side of his face was bruising. His nose bleeding heavily and his lip split. A lovely black eye was blossoming as well. 

“Great. How am I going to explain this to mum?” He sighed and tried to wipe the blood out of his shirt. Just talking hurt a little bit, but he guessed it could be worse. He cleaned up the best he could; but the blood flow didn’t not want to stop from his nose. “Why do I have to bleed so fast?” 

Blood was getting everywhere, including the counter. Eventually Peter gave up on mopping up everything and stormed out of the bathroom. He kept his head down all the way to his locker; he could feel his nose still bleeding and he really didn’t want to draw attention at that moment. 

“Peter!” Jess called from behind him, but he didn’t turn around. “Hey Peter!” He felt something on his shoulder and he whirled around to face Jess, arm still outstretched where his shoulder was a moment before. 

“Hey-jeez, what the heck happened to you?” Jess asked, trying to get a better look at his face, but he kept turning away. 

“Ohh, Brock happened.” Peter explained and wiped his nose again. Blood came away on his hand, which we cleaned off on his pants as soon as he saw it.

Jess squinted at him, sure she had seen a black eye. “Dude, why didn’t you fight back?” 

“I did! There were like seven guys!” 

“Then why didn’t you run!” 

“Mum told me no powers!!” Peter hissed, dangerously close to yelling it across the school. Jess stood a little bit straighter and almost glared at him. If she was older she would have looked exactly like their mom. 

“I think that would have been a proper occasion to use your powers.” She said, but Peter didn’t even try to listen. Jess didn’t understand, even if she thought she did. She hadn’t been thrown around because of her hair. She hadn’t passed out from low blood sugar because of any mutant powers. She hadn’t lost all of her friends because of. Stupid. Powers. 

“You don’t get it.” Peter said, knowing exactly what was coming else. 

“I think I do. You have to tell mum what happened. Maybe she’ll let you use your powers.” 

“No way, she’ll get super paranoid, it was just one stupid jock, it’s not that big of a deal.” Peter insisted, grabbed his backpack, and started for lunch, he was starving. Right when he thought Jess had given up on trying to convince him, she spoke again. 

“I call how your face looks a big deal.” 

Peter rolled his eyes. “I can handle myself.” He said and pushed on, getting just a bit faster.

“With your powers maybe, but not against seven guys who weigh almost twice what you do! Look, I’ll tell her if you don’t, she needs to know.” Jess kept pushing. If he didn’t come around she’d beat him up herself. 

Peter froze so suddenly she almost walked past him. “Don’t you dare.” He hissed, only now turning to look at her fully.

Jess almost jumped when she saw his face, but tried to ignore it. She could deal with that later. After her momentary lapse, she said: “I will. So tell her.” 

“No, I’m not gonna tell her and if you do I won’t take you to the arcade for a month.” 

.....Funny how things work out, isn’t it  
...........................................................

“Peter.” Magda called from the top of the basement steps. Peter froze in the middle of playing ping-pong with himself. For a second the only sound was the plastic ball rolling across the floor. “Peter?” Magda called again as she started down the stairs. Peter thought about running past her and out of the house for a second, but that would only get him in trouble, if he wasn’t in trouble already. She didn’t souls mad, so that was a good sign, but- 

“Could you vacuum the-oh my-What happened to you?!” Magda gasped as she stepped into the basement and she saw peter’s face. Peter winced. He had wanted to avoid this as long as possible. Too late now. 

“It’s not a big deal! It doesn’t hurt that bad.” It was a week excuse, but-

“you better tell me what happened or you’re grounded for a month.” Magda said, almost shaking. Peter pushed himself further into the couch; he had never seen her this mad except when he brought up his dad. Despite the shaken confidence, he kept trying to insist it wasn’t that big of a deal. The last thing he wanted was to have to dye his hair too, or always wear a hat. His mum was paranoid enough as it was. 

“Mum, it’s not bad, it’s okay.” He said. 

Magda was having none of it. “A month, peter.” She said as she crossed her arms. Oh no, that meant business. 

Peter hesitated for another second before he gave in. Might as well bite the bullet. “Brock and his friends cornered me, I wanted my shoes back and they didn’t want to give them up.” He sighed and looked away to fidget with the stitching on arm of the couch. 

“Shoes? What?! Peter, they beat you up over shoes?!” 

“Not exactly.” He whispered, still avoiding his mother’s gaze. 

“What do you mean not exactly.” Explain everything right now. And I mean everything.” 

“They showed a video in school about mutants and Brock put two and two together.” 

“Why didn’t you run, dragă.” She asked as she sat down beside him. Peter looked up at the Romanian nickname and shrugged: “You said no powers.” 

Magda sighed, frustrated with herself more than anyone else. She looked at her son again; he didn’t know it but he looked so much like his father, but in things like this the differences were clear. His father would have torn those kids to pieces. With another sigh, Magda went on. “honey, if anyone ever comes to hurt you, you use every power you’ve got and get out of there.” She pulled him into a hug. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, that’s why I told you no powers.” 

“I know mum.” He whispered and returned the hug, even if it hurt a little. “I’ll run next time, I promise.”


	4. An old friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of what happened with Brock, Peter gets a little bit of help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s your Monday update, guys, I hope you’re all enjoying it. Leave comments with any feedback, I like to hear what you think :)

Peter spent the week avoiding Brock the best he could, never giving himself a chance to be cornered. He only made that mistake once. His black eye would heal faster than most peoples’, but it stuck around for an annoying three days. At least he wasn’t popular enough to draw unwanted attention from it. 

Two days after the run in with Brock peter and Jess took another trip to the arcade, this time for the purpose of skating. 

“A pair of size sevens and a pair of fourteens coming up.” Mr Barnum said as he dipped behind the counter to grab the shoes. He popped back up with a smile that almost his his eyes in wrinkles. His expression changed as soon as his eyes focused on Peter. “Oooo, that’s quite a black eye, how’d that happen?” 

“I got in a fight.” Peter explained with a shrug and took his skates. He had thought for a second about lying, but he couldn’t bring himself to after he almost stole from him. 

“Always in trouble, huh?” The old man chuckled. After a pause as he watched the maximoffs start to tie their shoes before he added: “You know I had a group of kids in here The other day talking about some mutie boy they beat up, wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?” 

Peter froze and looked up at Mr Barnum. All of a sudden he seemed much more threatening. “I-I, umm, don’t know what you’re talking about.” He whispered and resumed knotting the laces. Peter could have smacked himself for how stupid of an answer that was. He could have slowed time down or something to think, but he hadn’t, and now it was too late.

“Whoa, no need to get defensive.” Barnum laughed again. “You’re in good company.” Peter’s head shot up at his words, as did Jess’s. Both of them watching spellbound as the the old man wiggled his fingers in the air and touched the counter. All the lights in the display case flickered and turned green for a split second.

“Fancy, huh?” He asked, more as a rhetorical question than anything else, the expressions on the Maximoffs’ were answer enough 

“What? You’re a-“ 

“Yes, now shhh, not all my customers would be happy with that.” Barnum said, dropping his voice to a whisper. Peter nodded in reply, but Jess was barely paying attention. 

“That was so cool!” Jess nearly squealed. “How did you do that?”

Peter rolled his eyes and hissed: “He has powers, just like me.” 

Jess crossed her arms and looked at him with an expression somewhere between disbelief and annoyance. “I know that, Peter.” She said, emphasizing his name just to mock him. “I meant what are his powers?” 

“Electronic manipulation. Anything that’s technology I can control.” Barnum explained, still smiling ear to ear. “I can even do this.” He nodded in the direction of a young boy playing centipede. The game flickered an error sign up on the screen and then the game over symbol. The kid shot back from the machine, obviously surprised. He glanced both ways before tentatively approaching the game for his tokens. 

“Dude! That’s so cool!” Jess squealed again, barely controlling herself enough to keep it in a whisper. Barnum watched Peter’s eyes light up with excitement. The poor kid had probably never seen another mutant in person before. He should have told him earlier. 

Peter was almost vibrating with excitement. He couldn’t string two thoughts together, they were all bouncing around in his head like an overactive pinball machine. The only thing that filtered through his adrenaline induced haze was Barnum waving a hand in front of his face. 

Peter blinked at him. “What?” 

Barnum laughed a little before he repeated himself. “I said: Now, I’ve shown you what I’ve got, how about you?” 

Peter nearly exploded. He’d like nothing better than to show off. Jess was hardly impressed anymore. He glanced around to make sure no one is watching before vibrating his hand. All three of them watched it blur into motion and stop just abruptly as it had begun. Peter couldn’t help but grin. 

“Ohhh, what is that? Speed?” Barnum asked, fascinated out of his mind. Peter nodded eagerly. Finally someone who liked his powers. Barnum nodded again and continued:

“Very good. How about this, you two and your mom can come to my house for dinner tomorrow, and I’ll show you some more tricks, maybe we can try some new things?” 

“We’ll be there.” 

“Great! I’ll make lasagna, you like lasagna?” 

“Totally...just,” Peter hesitated for a second before he went on. “uhh, you might want to make extra.” Barnum raised an eyebrow. “I eat...a lot.” Peter explained, trying not to be rude. Strange, most of the time he didn’t give a crap about manners, but Mr Barnum was the only guy to, not just not freak out, but actually liked his powers. He owed the man at least an effort at being polite. 

“Understood.” Barnum said with a wink. “Three pans sound good enough?” 

“It’s perfect.”   
. . . . . . .   
Peter ran Jess home a few hours later, leaving her one the doorstep to take a victory lap. He needed to burn off some energy, just skating wasn’t enough. He slipped his ear buds in and took off down the back roads of town. The notes of Thriller filled his ears to block out the deafening roar of the wind. It was his night on the town, so to speak, he had finally found another mutant, or rather he found him. Either way Peter was thrilled. 

He felt like he deserved a bit of a splurge after the run in with Brock. Peter had been so careful for so long, it was time to let loose a little...which included pranking the majority of people he saw. So much for good manners. 

He redirected a man in an expensive suit to step in a puddle, turned off the boom box of a random group of kids, helped himself to some Twinkies from the corner store, along with some candy. All small things, nothing of consequence. Nothing that would get him noticed. It wasn’t using your powers in public if no one saw you, right?...right?

Peter shook the second thoughts out of his head, this was his time he didn’t want to think about stuff like that. Life was good in super speed, nothing could touch him. Nothing. Not even a mugger he happened across, who he stole the gun from. tucking it into his belt, he sped the man to the police station, leaving a note that read: 

Bad guy. Was trying to mug a collage student.   
Your you’re welcome. 

His hand writing was sloppy and rushed, but he didn’t care. There we go, arresting that guy was his good deed for the day. Twinkies paid for, boom. 

On the way out of the station, Peter swiped a donut from a patrol car, deciding it was best to NOT take the coffee. It only took him once after his powers kicked in coupled with a coke to convince him to never have caffeine again. He skipped through a hop scotch game middle schoolers were drawing on the sidewalk and zipped, hopping over the hoods of cars, back down his street to his house before Jess had even opened the door. Wiping the dust off his face from the run, he pushed the door open as his sister reached for the knob. 

“Too slow.” Peter said as he grinned at her and slid inside. “You clear the table after dinner!” 

“Not fair!” She called after him as he disappeared down the basement stairs. 

“Is too!” He quipped back. 

“I hope you swallow a bug the next time you run!” 

“I hope you’re late to school because I left you behind!” 

“I hope you trip and fly into a wall!” The playful threats escalated, quickly devolving into a competition. 

“I hope you get really lame powers!” 

“I hope you burn through your favorite shoes!”

“I hope you fall for every prank I pull!”

“I hope you-“ 

“That’s enough!” Their mother yelled from the kitchen. “Come clear and set the table!” 

“Yes ma’am.” The siblings groaned together, but obeyed. 

“Ohh, Mr Barnum invited us to dinner tomorrow night, he’s making lasagna.” Peter told her ask he cleared his history homework. 

“I don’t know, Peter, after what happened with Brock...” 

“Ohh no, mum, he’s a mutant. He’s cool.” Peter was quick to assure her.

“He is? Oh thank God!” Magda sighed as she set a pot of chicken and dumplings on the table and threw her arms in the air like a coach whose team just won nationals. “I knew Greg was a nice man, I just knew it. And how he put up with your fidgeting, ohh bless that man, bless’m.” She trailed off into Romanian, as she always did when she was excited or scared. Thankfully it was the former this time. 

“So we can go?” Jess asked more as a formality than anything else. Magda was just as thrilled as they were.

“Of course! Ohh, goodness, how amazing.” 

The maximoff household buzzed with excitement the rest of the night and into the afternoon of the next day. All three were eagerly anticipating dinner that night.


	5. Around the world in 80 seconds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner at Barnum’s and Peter learns a few new things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, Wednesday update! Woo! The next one will be either Friday or Saturday, it depends how things shake out. This is a more fluffy chapter, I hope you all like it. Comment with any feedback or questions!

At 5:45 the maximoffs piled into Magda’s car and headed for Barnum’s house. Peter begged his mother to let him run, as he always did, but she told him no every time. If it was somewhere new he wasn’t allowed to run. Twenty minutes later they pulled into the old man’s driveway and knocked on the door of the small suburban house. Christmas lights still hung on the roof, though then season was long over. Mr Barnum opened the door smiling ear to ear.

“Come in, come in!” He said as he waved them inside. “Dinner is almost ready. Find a seat anywhere, make yourself at home.” He motioned around at the entry way as he showed them to the kitchen. Peter and Jess couldn’t help but gasp. Electronics littered the rooms. Lamps everywhere, a train set was running in a loop around the room, even a couple arcade units sat in the back corners. Toys, computers, a few phone, and even a couple printers were strewn about haphazardly. The maximoffs navigated through the organized clutter on the floor to the kitchen.

“Thank you so much Mr Barnum.” Magda said then immediately almost tripped over a plasma ball. After she had regained herself she added: “You don’t know what much I appreciate this.” 

“No problem at all, I truly enjoy it.” Barnum said as he switched off the oven without touching the knob and nodded at the fan, turning it on. A homemade little robot stamped across to the oven, pulled it open, and brought the lasagna over to the table. Everyone watched it’s progress and all three maximoff jumped when the bot hopped itself onto the table. 

Barnum laughed a little as they watched it with wide eyes. “That’s Samuel.” He explained with a wave in the robot’s direction. On hearing it’s name, Samuel beeped happily and turned in a little circle before continuing on with its task. 

“So cool.” Jess whispered, spellbound by everything in the house.

“Glad you like it.” The old man smiled at her as Samuel dished out dinner. The bot heaped almost an entire tray of lasagna onto Peter’s plate. Samuel froze with another small beep in front of peter’s plate. Peter looked from the robot to Barnum, and back again.

“Go ahead and pat him on the head, that’s how he knows his job is done.” 

Peter didn’t need telling twice. He was almost twitching with the urge to touch the robot. He gave Samuel two pats on the head and, in return, he rolled away from Peter’s plate and hopped off the end of the table with a chirp of satisfaction. 

“That’s so cool.” Peter said once the droid had disappeared into the next room. Barnum nodded, mouth full of pasta. Jess still watched the doorway Samuel had passed through, almost struck dumb by how exciting it all was. For how excited she was, Peter was equally, if not more so. Here he was, having dinner with another mutant, a cool mutant, who had offered to help him out a little. 

“So uh; Can we try out the new things you mentioned?” Peter asked after a second, no longer able to stop himself. 

“Of course, right after dinner.“

After that dinner seemed to take forever, but eventually it was finished and Samuel came scurrying back to clear the table. 

As soon as Barnum stood up, Peter jumped up to follow. The older man chuckled to himself, but didn’t comment on it. Instead he turned and waved them all to staircase that led down to a basement. The lights flickered on without any of them touching a switch. As they walked, Barnum began rambling on, almost to himself:

“So, I was thinking, of you could move yourself fast enough you could break glass, run on water, jump higher, so many more things besides just running.” Barnum’s eyes sparkled with excitement as he went on. Peter was right there along with him. It felt like waking up on Christmas morning. “I’ve met younger mutants before, but most of the have no idea how to control their powers, you’re the first, I’m not capable of training someone with no handle on their abilities, But you I can handle.” He paused for a second to smile back at Peter as the staircase opened up into a small basement. If the house could store anymore clutter, it was all shoved down here. Boxes filled to overflowing with random parts were stacked haphazardly throughout the room. Over in the corner sat a work bench with a lamp and balanced between the desk and a couple boxes was a pane of glass. “Ahh, here, I want you to try and break this.” Barnum said and pulled Peter over. Magda and Jess gathered around the desk beside them, just far enough way to avoid getting hit by shards of glass that might come. 

Peter glanced down at his hands. They were shaking. With a deep breath he stepped up and placed his hands flat on the glass. He glanced at Barnum who nodded for him to go on, then looked over to his mum and Jess. Magda gave him a nervous smile, but nodded and Jess gave him a thumbs up. He was pretty sure if she had super speed she would be vibrating. With their approval clear in his mind, he began to vibrate his hands, shaking the pane and the boxes below it. A ringing built as Peter’s hands blurred faster and faster. With a earsplitting crack the glass shattered into a million pieces. Everyone cheered, but Peter just stared down at his hands in awe. 

“I just broke glass. By just moving my hands.” He whispered, which soon turned into a laugh of disbelief as turned to Jess holding out his hands. “I just broke glass!”

“That was not only glass that was bullet proof glass!” Mr Barnum said, nearly jumping up and down. Peter laughed again and had to sit down just in case he accidentally started running. Barnum pulled Peter to his feet and dragged him along towards the stairs. “Come on, we can’t stop now! to the pool, I have an idea....” 

Peter made several attempts at sprinting across the pool’s surface, the first couple he failed and drenched himself. But on the sixth try he made it across and jumped into the air with a whoop

“I made it!! Boo ya!!” He shouted and punched the air in victory, he took a lap around the yard and shook the water off of himself like a dog. Barnum ran towards him and nearly barreled into him when he stopped running. 

He grabbed Peter’s shoulders and made sure he was looking at him before he went on. “Do you know what this means.” Peter shook his head, but wasn’t grinning any less. Barnum laughed a little and said as dramatically as he could: “You can run across oceans. You can run around the world.” Peter stared in silence at the old man, mouth hanging open. That sentence was like a punch to the gut, but a good one. 

“I can run around the world.” He breathed, letting it sink in. “Oh I’m so going to England at some point.”

“You have to take me too.” Jess insisted, just now making it down from the top of the deck mounted around the pool to get to them. 

“Sure thing, but you might swallow some bugs over that far of a distance.”

“Worth it.” Jess shrugged. 

Ten minutes later the maximoffs piled back in the car. Peter stared out the window and bounced his leg in the tight space. He was giddy with excitement. He wanted to actually try running around the world now and time himself. Anything. He wanted to do anything, but now he was trapped back in the car. 

“Can I run home, mum? Please?” He asked for the fourth time. Magda gave him the stink eye. 

“You just ran for a while, Peter, you can wait.” She said after a second. 

Peter knew better than to push it anymore, so he just increased the speed of the tapping until Magda told him to stop. In which case he switched to playing with the rubber of his goggles. Regardless of the fidgeting they all made it home with their sanity in tact. Though peter bolted from the car as soon as the doors unlocked. He needed to run. And he did, once around the world and fell asleep as soon as he hit his bed.


	6. Down with mutants!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks down the road, things go rapidly down hill...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Here’s the next one and things start to speed up (pun intended) comment with any feedback, please :)

Jess and Peter made a habit of going to the arcade every Wednesday after school to see Mr Barnum. They sat with him behind the counter half of the time and listened to the stories the old man told. He was one of the few who could get peter to stay still for more than five minutes. Two weeks after peter had first broken the glass he and Jess were walking to the arcade after the last day of school for the year. 

“So Rebecca’s birthday is this weekend, but mum has to work and she lives across town, so will you take me?” Jess asked as they made their way to Barnum’s Circus. They walked in step with each other, Jess refusing to show she was having to put effort into keeping up with Peter. 

Peter thought about her question for a second and shrugged. “Uhh, I guess, I need the address though and-what’s going on at arcade” they both stopped in their tracks, mouthes hanging open at the sight before them. A huge crowd had formed in front of the arcade, some members of which held signs, but they were blocked from the sibling’s sight. Everyone was shouting, the sound mixed making the worlds unintelligible. 

“It’s a protest.” Peter said as he looked down Jess, scowling. 

“But what are they protesting?” Jess asked. Peter shrugged, but he thought he had an idea about why the crowd was here. They circled around the crowd to get in view of the signs. Peter bit back a curse when he read them. 

END MUTANT FREAKS

MUTANTS ARE DANGEROUS   
ARE YOU SURE YOUR CHILDREN ARE SAFE

ANIMALS DONT DESERVE HUMAN RIGHTS

FREAKS OUT! SAFETY IN!

MONSTERS

FREAKS

ALIENS

“Oh my gosh.” Jess breathed, glancing up at Peter. His jaw was clenched tight, she could almost feel the anger radiating off of him. They both stood in shocked silence for a second before realization dawned on their faces. In unison they turned to each other. 

“Mr Barnum!” They yelled above the den. 

“Stay here.” Peter ordered and took a step towards the crowd. “It’s not safe.” 

“I’m not a mutant!” Jess yelled back as she started after him. She couldn’t just let him walk into this mess alone. 

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe! Now stay here!” He meant it, but Jess was instant. 

“You’re in more danger than I am here! If anything-“ 

The crash of glass braking interpreted their argument. They both spun back towards the building. 

“They broke the front window, I have to check if he’s in there. stay here, Jess. And DONT argue with me.” She tried to protest but he zipped away from her into the building, leaving her standing alone on the sidewalk. 

“Mr Barnum?! Peter called as he wove through the lines of arcade units, hoping to find the owner alive and well. 

“Peter.” A quiet gasp came from behind the counter. In a flash, the speedster made it to the old mutant’s side. 

“Mr Barnum, are you okay?!” He asked, already scanned him for injuries. His eyes landed on Barnum’s bloody hand pressed tightly against his side. 

“Just a flesh wound, I’ll be fine. You need to get out of here Peter, “ Barnum grabbed Peter’s wrist with his free hand, making Peter look him in the eye. “they’re out for blood.”

“I got to get you out of here, I can’t just leave you.” Peter said as he slid his arm under Barnum’s shoulders and helped him up, eliciting a hiss from the old man. “I don’t think I should speed you...” he looked down at the gash in the mutant’s side. He got only a nod in response. Peter was so focused on helping Barnum that he nearly forgot about the mob outside. Until, that is, he pushed the door open. Immediately the eyes of everyone locked on the pair of mutants in front of the arcade. 

“He’s Another freak!” A drunk looking man yelled and pointed at Peter. Peter felt himself stiffen at the man’s words and barely heard Barnum speaking at his side. 

“I told you they were out for blood, get outa here, kid, I don’t want you getting hurt.” 

Peter ignored him and started making his way through the crowd, keeping his head down. Not that it helped much, all heads were turned on the pair. Insults being thrown at them the whole way. Once in the middle of the crowd Peter knew he had made a mistake. All around them were people pushing in shoulder to shoulder. 

“He needs medical attention! He’s hurt!” Peter shouted at the crowd pushing in but they didn’t seem bothered. 

“He? More like it.” Peter could smell the alcohol off the breath of the man who spoke, making his nose wrinkle in distaste. 

“HEs Hurt cause you threw a brick through the window of his business!” He shouted back at the crowd and continued elbowing his way through. “Now get out of my way!!” 

“He might use his freaky powers on us!” One woman screamed from the edge of the mob. 

“Get out of my way and I won’t have to!” 

It did the trick, mostly. A few attempted to hold peter back but he shook them off and made it into the open. Sirens blared from an ambulance tearing down the street, but it still couldn’t come fast enough from Peter’s point of view. He passed the weight of the injured mutant to the paramedics and started weaving through the crowd to find Jess. He had just spotted her when a sharp pain shattered on top of his head. He whipped around out of instinct at nearly 300 miles per hour to see the Same drunken man holding broken bottle where Peter’s head was a split second before. He felt the back of his head, it was sticky, when he looked at his hand it was red. He took the bottle from the man and forced himself to slow down to normal speed. He spun on his heal leaving the intoxicated racist staring blankly at his empty hand. Peter found Jess by the ally next to the arcade. 

“Come on, we gotta get to the hospital.” He tossed the bottle in a nearby dumpster and grabbed Jess’s hand. She understood and jogged along side him until they were out of sight of the protesters. In a gust of wind and a fraction of a second she was in the broom closet of the city hospital with Peter and a bunch of mops. 

“Sorry.” He mumbled, accidentally elbowing her as he opened the door. “I didn’t want to just speed in.” 

They jogged to the front desk expecting to get a room number, but it turned out they were early and would have to wait. Peter sighed when the nurse said it could take an hour to get Mr Barnum in a room and able to be visited. 

“Maybe we should just go home and come back in the morning, he’s gonna be tired and probably high on crazy pain killers.” Jess said as she stared into the fish tank in the hospital waiting room trying to ignore the constant squeaking Peter’s shoe was making on the tile. It was driving her crazy, but she didn’t have the heart to ask him to stop. 

“I just want to make sure he’s okay, if he got exposed as a mutant because of me I’m gonna loose it.” Peter said. He touched the back of his head gingerly, it has stopped bleeding. Finally. With a huff he ran a hand through his hair and stood up. “You’re right, let’s go, mom’ll be getting worried if we aren’t back soon.” 

When they exited the automatic doors Peter held a piece of gum out to Jess. She gave him a questioning look, but took it and popped it into her mouth. 

“The nurse had some behind the counter thingy.” He explained as he popped a piece of his own in his mouth. 

“Of course she did.” Jess shook her head with a laugh. She teased him about a lot of things, but stealing wasn’t one of them. He joked around and let the teasing roll off of him, most of the time he enjoyed it. But when it came to stealing it only took once for Jess to mark it as a no-no topic. He said he couldn’t help it, and he meant it. When he took that tone, all questions were over.


	7. Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter isn’t too happy after what happened at Barnum’s and he decides to do something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monday update! I almost forgot about this today...sorry, but this is exciting nonetheless. Comments would be greatly appreciated, I love you all! Enjoy

Two days later peter was speeding around the basement playing a game of pingpong against himself as the TV supplied mind numbing white noise in the background. His worries about Mr Barnum grew and so did his speed. He went faster and faster, watching the ball freeze in mid air as he ran to hit it back across the table. This continued for only a few minutes because of the thick smell of burning rubber and carpet met his nose.

“Crap! Not again.” He said to himself and hurriedly stomped out the fire that had started in his wake on the floor, leaving the bottom of his sneakers black. He threw himself onto the couch and tossed his half melted shoes in the corner of the room where they joined an almost identical pair. In the silence that followed the news broadcast caught his attention. 

“Local businessman Gregory Barnum was discovered as a mutant two days ago, causing the city council to question the safety of our children in an establishment that is run by a man who can easily kill everyone in the room. In light of this realization the city has seized ownership of Barnum’s Circus and placed it under new management.”

Peter’s mouth fell opens and the pingpong paddle slipped from his hand, clattering to the floor. 

“Peter?! Are you seeing this?!” His mother called from upstairs. He was immediately by her side, watching the same broadcast on the TV in the living room. Jess sat crisscrossed on the carpet, the same look of amazement on her face as Peter’s. 

“Can they do that?” Jess whispered, not taking her eyes off the screen for a second. 

“They shouldn’t be able to.” Magda said. She placed a hand on her son’s shoulder and realized he was vibrating. She glanced over at him only to see his disappear from beside her. 

“I’m going out, I’ll be back in a few.” Peter yelled from the kitchen. He slammed the door behind him and sped down the street towards the arcade. He got there just in time to see the new owner taping a “NO MUTANTS” sign to the door. Peter’s blood turned cold. In an instant he had snatched the paper from the man and crumpled it into a tiny ball. He paced the front of the shop, everyone around him still seemingly frozen. In another split second he made his decision and pushed the shop door open, moving too fast for the bell to have time to ring. He scanned the row of game units, grinning to himself when he saw the old pac man game. He zipped over, unplugged the machine, and wrapped the cord around his arm. With a hard shove he got it moving towards the door, scraping up the carpet on the way and hoped it wouldn’t catch on fire. He grinned to himself after a second thought. What better way to say hello to these jerks than to light the floor on fire. 

Ten minutes later peter flopped, sweating on the old couch in the basement. He grinned and admired his handy work. Six arcade units sat around the room, filling what empty space there used to be. He had thought about going back for a seventh, but once he noticed the cars start to speed up around him, he decided to call it quits. He turned when he heard footsteps skipping down the stairs. 

“Hey, Peter, mum said that we could get pizza if you-since when have you had a Pac Man game?” Jess froze at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the games. 

“Since about eight minutes ago, I think.” He said with a chuckle at her surprise as she ran her hands over the game controls. 

“Where did you-Ohh, Peter, you didn’t!” 

“I might have.” 

“Peter! Food is one thing, but whole arcade units!” 

“They aren’t letting mutants in the arcade! What else was I supposed to do? Smile and take it?” Peter asked, throwing his arms wide in question. Jess opened her mouth to answer, but hesitated. 

“I don’t know...this just seems extreme, even for you.” She plopped on the couch beside him, glancing over at him for a second. “What if they had cameras, we know Barnum did.” 

“I’m too fast, Jess, don’t worry about it.” He explained away with a wave of his hand. He zipped up and got himself a Twinkie before sitting again in front of the Pac Man unit. “You up for a rematch?” 

Jess rolled her eyes but hopped up to look over his shoulder at the flashing yellow circle zip around the screen. 

“Only if you think you can beat me.” She grinned at him.

“Ohh, you’re going down, slow poke. This is my territory now.”


	8. consequences.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is fast, sure, but consequences catch up with him eventually, and it’s only the beginning...

The next morning Peter and Jess were up early to visit Barnum in the hospital. After a trek down the cold hallway they arrived at the door to room 42.

“Come in.” A sleepy voice answered their knock. Peter and Jess poked their heads in the room, receiving a tired smile from the old mutant lying in the bed. 

“Peter, Jess, how’ve you been?” Barnum asked and motioned them to sit down. Both of them declined telling him that peter stole six arcade units from the man’s own business. Jess helped herself to the only extra chair in the room, leaving peter to stand up, not that he minded. 

“Pretty good, how’s your side?” Jess said with a shrug. Both she and peter declined telling him that peter stole six arcade units from the man’s own business. 

“Well, I’ve been better, but I’m not dead. Thanks for that peter.” Peter grins at Barnum’s words.

“It wasn’t a big deal, I couldn’t just leave you.” Peter starts fidgeting with his earbuds. Barnum notices and reaches for a pack of cards on the side table. 

“Care for a game?” He held the cards out to peter, who took them gratefully and dealt out three Hands.

“What are we playing?” Jess slides the chair to the edge of the bed with a screech.

“Go fish?” Peter looked up at the old mutant in front of him with an apologetic expression. “We don’t really know how to play anything else.” 

“Ohh, no bother, go fish it is.......do you have any twos?” 

They played for an hour until Barnum ordered peter to go for a run before he exploded, he graciously accepted and took off in a blur once he cleared the cameras of the hospital. After another hour of listening to Barnum tell them stories of how he met the Beatles when he was 14, Peter ran jess home. When they got there two police cars were parked outside the maximoff’s house. Jess grabbed Peter’s hand, both of them sucked in a breath. It was hard to believe that 

Jess looked up Peter in horror. He looked even paler than usual, “what if they saw y-“ 

“That’s impossible, they’re probably here about the protest, no big deal.” He mumbled. He was trying to convince himself as well as her. They wove between the cars and walked up the stairs. With a light knock on the door, Peter pushed the door open. 

“Mum?” He called, only to get no response. He and Jess wandered into the kitchen where three officers sat at the kitchen table with their mother. She sat with her head in her hands, a drink beside her. Magda glanced up at her children as they entered the room. She looked just as tired as she did when she got of a 12 hour shift. The drink beside her was what caught Peter’s attention. She had been alcohol free for years after she finally got over her addiction and came to terms with the fact that their father left, but whatever happened seemed to have turned that around. 

“Peter, right?” The officer closest to him stood up to greet him, but didn’t offer his hand to shake. It hovered next to his gun on his belt, even if he was trying to cover it.

“Yeah.” Peter said after a second and shot his mom a glance, she returned the look with mournful eyes. Peter clenched his hands until his knuckles went white, trying not to shake or, heaven forbid, vibrate. “What’s going on?” 

“Do you know anything about a consistent string of thefts from the Earth Mart downtown?” The officer asked. Peter internally started to panic, forcing himself to to keep a calm face. 

“I don’t think so, has it been on the news, ‘cause I don’t get around much.” His voice sped up as he got increasingly nervous. The second patrolman pulled out a file and handed it to the first. Peter fought back the urge to sneak a look of the file. 

“That’s funny, because I’m pretty sure there aren’t many silver haired teenagers running around, let alone with super speed.” 

“Wha-whatareyoutalkingabout?” Peter spit out before he could control himself. Jess placed a hand on his shoulder, their signal to slow down. The officer handed peter a few blurry pictures from the file. 

“Peter Maximoff, born 2002. known mutant after he passed out and vomited at a track and field meet, seemingly appearing at the finish line in an instant. Mutation: super speed.” The officer read out of the case file. “Those pictures were taken a few weeks ago, that’s you, Isn’t it?” Peter looked up at the man, worry seeping into his eyes. 

“I-I,” He took a shaky breath and looked from his mother to Jess to the officers’ to the pictures of himself and back to his mother. Her words from earlier coming back to him: if anyone comes to hurt you then run. He debated for a second if this counted. His nervous brain decided it was and he took off for the door. He moved so fast he hadn’t seen the fourth officer who was on the steps. He ran smack into the man, sending him flying backwards and onto the sidewalk. In a panic, Peter froze at the sight of the man, groaning on the ground.

“Oh ****!” Peter yelled, catching the attention of everyone inside. The other policemen made it outside first, looking from Peter to their coworker and back to peter. One knelt down and checked the fallen man’s pulse. 

“He’s Alive.” Everyone let go a breath they didn’t know they were holding. The blonde grabbed Peter’s shoulder. 

“Come on son.” Peter nodded absentmindedly, still staring at the man he had flung to the ground and let himself be lead to the patrol car. Jess and Magda stood together in the doorway, watching Peter be lead away. 

“Mum, what are we supposed to do?” 

“Support your brother, Sweetie, that’s all we can do.”


	9. Prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has gotten himself in big trouble, and man, does it suck. Prison and super speed really doesn’t mix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friday update! Woo! I don’t know how many of you are still reading this, honestly...hopefully several, but even if there are only a few of you I hope you like it. Things are exciting and will be so until the end, I’d love it if you stuck around. Comment with any questions or feedback, thanks

For once, everything was moving too fast. Even the hours of red tape to get peter in a holding cell seemed to fly by. After a heavy debate it was decided he would be housed in the adult jail due to his powers. Not that he was going to run, what good would it do? They already knew who he was. For once running wasn’t the solution. For once he wasn’t doing the leg work. For once he was stuck. 

The hours found him pacing his 10ft by 10ft, Bare, concrete cell. He was waiting for the prison guard to arrive to take him to his phone call. He doubted the resilience of the rubber in the soles of his mandatory shoes, so he held himself back to bellow 300 miles an hour. The clinking of keys made him turn to the door. Two men in uniform stood in the doorway, and beckoned him to the hallway. A minute or two later peter was on the phone with his mother.

“We’re coming by later, honey, we’ve been trying to find a lawyer, but it’s been difficult.” His mom’s voice buzzed on the other side of the line. 

“I get it, mum, I-I’m sorry, I really didn’t think I’d ever get caught and-“ 

“I know, I know, we forgive you. It’s just been a hassle trying to figure out how you’re getting out of this mess.” Magda said with a sigh. Peter could tell she had been drinking. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, a bit anxious with how close the guards are to him. 

“I don’t know if there is a way of getting out of this, mum, I might have to serve time.” A pause and then a large sniff from Magda. 

“We’ll find a way, just don’t go crazy with how slow things go.” Peter’s chuckle was only half sincere. Him going crazy was a very real possibility. 

“I’ll try, love you.” 

“Love you too, Sweetie, I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Okay, bye.” Peter sighed and clicked the receiver into place.

That night Peter’s sleep was troubled. He just couldn’t seem to fall asleep and kept twitching from lack of running. The dull, constant ache crept into his bones, reminding him of the bottled up energy that just bouncing his leg on the floor wouldn’t burn. The time no longer seemed to fly by, there was only so many games you could play by yourself in a 10ft square concrete block. 

Despite the tossing turning morning eventually came, and with it, breakfast. The cafeteria was at least less crowded than the school’s, but it also had the distinct disadvantage, Peter noticed, that he seemed to be the only one in there who was under 30, let alone a mutant. It also had the disadvantage that he had to survive on whatever food they have him and couldn’t just run to the nearest McDonalds, ironic that almost that exact action had landed him in this situation in the first place. He was happy to see that they had enough since to give him several extra portions, even if it wasn’t quite enough. He wasn’t exactly burning a copious quantity of fuel at the moment anyway. 

He plopped himself down at an empty table and started on his meal. The only thing to do In the room was watch the small television attached to the support pole in the middle of the cafeteria. So, that’s what peter occupied himself with, not that hearing about the new dam that was being built was interesting, but it was better than nothing. The news was quickly much more exciting, and much more terrifying. 

“Yesterday mutant teen Peter Maximoff was arrested after ‘attacking an officer’ while trying to escape arrest. Tempers are rising as the police try to determine how to deal with this unique situation, and whether the defendant should be held accountable for the actions of his powers.” The new caster seemed very interested in the story, and it definitely beat the dam story in their book. 

Peter’s mouth fell open, eyes locked on the screen in horror. The news was making it sound like he had gone crazy and attacked the officer. A few other men in the prison cafeteria glanced over at the boy. Peter looked down at his plate as the news switched topics, set on not making eye contact with anyone.

The inmates were allowed a work out hour after breakfast. Peter’s mind was racing trying to figure out how he’d burn a day’s worth of energy in the time span of an hour, but at least it was better than nothing. Still refusing to make eye contact he made his way to the fastest looking treadmill in the gym. He cranked the knob onto top speed and stood staring waiting for it to speed up. 

“What are ya try’a to do? Launch yourself into the wall?” A man, looking around fifty laughed at the speedster. 

“Not exactly.” Peter said not taking his eyes off the rubber belt spinning around the track. He tested it with his shoe before stepping on and running. He took his anger out on the poor machine as it groaned beneath his feet. A strange flapping noise was coming from somewhere but he didn’t really care where. He didn’t until he became aware that all his fellow inmates had stopped what they were doing to stare at him. Peter looked around with a questioning look and then down at the treadmill. He looked just in time to see the belt snap under him. In a mere blip he had jumped off the machine and the belt slapped into wall. 

“Holy ****.” The same middle age man cursed beside peter.

“You can say that again.” Peter mumbled, picking up the burnt piece of rubber to inspect it. With a huff he dropped it again and strode, hands in his pockets, to the guard. 

“I’m done.” He told the officer, watching his face for a reaction. With a quick, stiff nod the man lead him back to his cell.  
............…...................   
Visiting hours rolled around and Peter sat bouncing his leg, no longer caring if it was a blur. They knew he was a mutant anyway, why hold back? Regardless of how fast his leg moved the time until his mother arrived was dragging by, occasionally interrupted by random twitches. His head shot up, from where he was fidgeting with his handcuffs, at the sound of Jess’s voice. 

“Peter!” She ran up to the glass dividing them. Magda followed close behind, looking like she was five years older than she had been two days ago. Bringing up the rear was a youngish mad, early thirties by Peter’s calculations, in a wheelchair. Mrs. Maximoff hurried to the seat in front of glass and picked up the phone. Peter mirrored her action. After many reassurances that he was behaving and not going insane, Peter was introduced to the wheelchair guy. 

“This is Charles Xavier, he’s agreed to take your case, you better tell him everything, Peter, and do what he tells you. He’s your last chance before a state assigned lawyer and I just know that won’t be any help at all.” Magda rushes to explain. 

“Hello peter, it’s good to meet you.” Charles smiled warmly at the speedster, taking the phone from Magda. “So, I need to know everything. From the beginning.” 

Peter nodded, strangely enough not nervous about talking to this Charles guy, it just felt right telling him. He took a breath and launched into what would surely be a long story, even by normal people standards. After almost an hour and a lot of fidgeting later peter had caught Xavier up to speed on the situation (Pun fully intended). Charles nodded knowingly at key points in the story and took a few notes. 

Over the next week peter and Charles, mainly charles, came up with a plan for the trial. The direction they would take. And the verdict they were hoping for. 

The day came and everyone was a bucket of nerves. The only person who seemed to be holding the maximoffs together was Charles. Ten minutes before the trial Peter and Charles were sitting at the defense’s table. Peter looked like he might be sick. 

“I got’ta know...why did you take my case?” Peter glanced over at the other man. 

“For several reasons, Peter. One, you needed help and I can supply the help you need. Two, I think you’re just a scared kid who is completely in over his head. Three...I couldn’t let a fellow mutant be sent to jail because of an accident.” Peter whipped around to face Chares. 

“What?!” Chares simply nodded in response. Peter was about to inquire further when he was interrupted by a voice in his head that wasn’t his own. 

‘Yes, I’m a mutant, and I’m not actually a lawyer, but, I wouldn’t let that bother you, I’m pretty confident that we will win the case.’ The calm British voice of Xavier spoke. 

“You’re a telepath?” Peter asked. Charles nodded again.

“And a pretty powerful one if I say so myself.” Charles’s eyes shown with a fatherly mischief that made peter smile, wondering what it would have been like to grow up with a father. The nerves that has been boiling in Peter’s stomach subsided as he became much more confident of his chances out of this mess. You can hardly disagree with a telepath, can you?


	10. Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here goes nothing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooner update because I’m stuck at home! Woohoo! I hope you enjoy, writing this one was rough...

“All rise.” The bailiff ordered the court. The room was filled with the ruffle of everyone following orders. All heads turned to face the woman in black robes who entered the room. 

“You May be seated.” The judge said as she opened the case file and glanced over it to remind herself of the details. The actual details, mind you, not the propaganda the media had been spreading. “Production May call their first witness.” 

“Thank you, your honor.”......

An hour later peter was finally called to the stand, by this point fidgeting with a boat load of pent up energy, heightened by his nerves. He had already twitched and narrowly avoided hitting Charles in the face. 

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” Peter nodded in response to the bailiff. Charles wheeled up in front of the witness stand and began questioning. 

‘This isn’t so bad.’ Peter thought and heaved a sigh of relief as he answered the easy questions Charles gave him. He was purposely structuring questions to help Peter’s case. Everyone went well, no hitches, until it was time for cross examination. 

“How long have you had your...powers, mr. maximoff?” The prosecution’s lawyer said, completely skipping the formalities and jumped straight into questioning. 

“Almost three years.” Peter mumbled and shifted in his seat, not being sure of where this was going was making him nervous. 

“And is three years long enough to master your abilities?” 

“Umm, I’m not-“

“You use your powers on a daily basis correct?”

“Yes, but-“

The lawyer turned on her heel to face the jury. 

“How can the defense say that this mutant has no control over his powers, if he had used them on a daily basis for the past three years. This young man was fully aware of what-“

A bang and groan interrupted her speech. The entire court turned to the source of the noise: the witness stand. 

“Sorry.” Mumbled Peter. He had twitched violently and kicked the inside of the stand. 

“Please do try to keep your speed under control.” The attorney said with a roll of her eyes at Peter and finished her speech. When it came time for closing statements Charles looked like a child in a candy store as he rolled up in front of the jury. 

“The prosecution stated that my client could not control his powers, however, directly after they reprimanded him for not being able to control those same powers. Their statement of his full control is based fully on stipulation. While mine is based on fact. You all witnessed the violent, and even painful, twitch the defendant experienced. I urge the jury to see that the actions of my client were purely accidental and see that he is a young man in over his head, not a cop hater and rebellious mutant who knocked down an officer out of spite or hate...Thank you., your honor and members of the jury for your time.” With a small nod Charles wheeled back to his seat. Both he and peter took a long breath as the bailiff dismissed the court and the jury. 

Charles has done everything we could it was up to the twelve jury members now. Or was it?....  
————————————————

————————————————-  
The jury deliberated for several hours before they finally made their appearance. Everyone was still, even peter, as they unfolded the paper that held the verdict. 

“Not guilty.” The monotone voice broke the almost sickening silence. For a second everything was still.

“WOO!!” A voice that Peter recognized as Jess shouted from the back of the room. He turned and flashed a grin at his sister. The grin faded as another person shouted.

“BOO!! YOU DONT KNOW ****!” some called in agreement which made peter’s nerves come back full force. He focused on controlling the twitch he felt building and glanced over at Charles. Xavier smiled gently and nodded reassuringly. He meant to send a mental message to the speedster but got booted by the rushing train of thought. 

“You’re going home.” He said instead. Peter shook his head and chuckled.

“Damn right I am.” Peter grinned at Charles. “Thanks.” 

“Just this once I’ll allow that language.” Charles returned his grins. “And you’re very welcome.”   
————————————————  
Magda invited Charles to dinner, which he eagerly accepted. After a twenty minute drive the company was getting seated at an Italian restaurant outside of town. 

“I’ll have the chicken Alfredo, thank you.” Charles handed his menu to the waiter with a nod. The poor waiter looked shell shocked after scribbling down Peter’s seven item order. 

“Before anyone has a chance to take control of the conversation I would like to discuss something.” All three maximoff looked at Charles with identical expressions of confusion. “As you all know, I’m not a lawyer. I’m a professor, but, that’s not all.” He paused, to see if they reacted.

“Are you a spy or something.” Jess joked.

“Not exactly, I deal more in the area of, well super heroes.” 

Peter, Magda, and Jess all burst out laughing.

“Superheroes? Like, real life super heroes?” Peter raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

“Why is that so hard to believe, you’re the one with super speed, and I have telepathy. What is so funny about the idea?” 

“I’ll tell you why, because humans freaking hate mutants. How can there be mutant superheroes?”

“Well, it’s new idea, Peter, I haven’t worked out the kinks. That’s why I want dependable people to start it with. You, and a few others. I’m offering you a potion on that superhero team. The x men.” 

“I, I don’t know. I’m already a mutant Target. You realize I’ve been part of TWO mutant scandals, right?”

“Yes, yes I do, I run a school for mutants outside of New York, and I’m inviting you to get away from DC, to take classes, and on occasion, when the need arrises, be a super hero.” 

“If you haven’t noticed I don’t exactly need training to use my powers.” Peter grinned at the professor. 

“Oh?” The sides of Charles mouth twitch into a smile. “Was that twitch in court on purpose?” 

“Well...no, but still, that’s not normal.” 

“Am I hearing that you don’t want to be a superhero?” 

“Kinda, I mean, yes and no. Every kid dreams of it, and I love my powers, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t give them up for anything, but I don’t want the attention-“

“Well that’s a first.” Jess rolled her eyes.

“Oh shut up.” Peter rolled his eyes in return. “I don’t want the anti mutant crap. I’ve had enough of it.” He looked down and toyed with the napkin In his lap. Charles opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind. 

“Oh look, our food.” 

The dinner convention took a lighter tone for the rest of the night. When Magda went to pay Charles waved Jess after her. 

“If you change your mind, the offer is always open.” Charles smiled gently and started wheeling towards the door. Peter hopped up to follow him and shoved his hands in his pockets, seemingly fascinated by his shoes.” 

“I just don’t know prof. I’ll think about it.” 

“That is all I ask”


	11. Peter just can’t catch a break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the trial, things don’t settle back to normal. They all get thrown for an even bigger loop, and this time it’s going to take more than charles to get Peter out of trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo guys! Sorry I didn’t post on Monday, my bad. Tagged characters are going to start showing up and we’re into the heart of the story now. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how this is going.

Peter tossed a tennis ball in the air as he lay on the living room floor. 

“I can’t believe you gave up the chance to be a super hero, like, a legit superhero.” Jess said as she held the bag of chips out to Peter. He caught the ball and thew it behind the couch in favor of the chips. 

“You haven’t dealt with the mutant hater crazy people.” 

“I’d still be a superhero if I got the chance.” She mumbled through a full mouth. 

Peter squinted at her and was about to answer when the front door opened. 

“I’m home!” Magda called, followed by the thump of her bag hitting the floor. 

“We’re in the living room, mum!” The siblings shouted in unison. Their mother came in smiling ear to ear. 

“I had the most wonderful time, tonight.” She said as he sat down wistfully on the couch. Jess and Peter exchanged glances, both very confused. “I haven’t met a man like that since your father.” She sighed. Realization dawned on Peter’s face. 

“Mum, did you get a boyfriend?” Peter smirked.

“I don’t know if I’d call him that.” 

“Mum!” Jess squealed, sitting up excitedly. “You do have a boyfriend!” 

“You make it sound like some high school crush.” 

“It’s still exciting, you can’t deny it.” 

“Okay, fine.” Magda have her children a motherly smile. “But no teasing and you better not scare him away.” 

“I’ll try my best.” Peter said as he folded his arms behind his head with a satisfied sigh and flashed his trademark, mischievous grin. 

“What’s his name?” Jess asked

“Will. And he’s so charming and, ohh....”

Talk like this continued the rest of the night. Peter bailed twenty minutes in and retreated to his basement to keep his Pac Man game company. There was only so much girl talk he could take. He was happy for his mother, but the idea of someone replacing his father, whoever that may be, was not a comforting one.  
————————————————-  
Late that week, peter woke up late, even later than usual, and zipped up stairs to make himself breakfast. He reached for the fridge handle to find a note attached to the door. 

Will is coming over tonight after I get back from work. Please be on your best behavior. Be back by 5:00. 

Peter tossed the note his mother left on the table and grabbed what he needed to make French toast from the fridge. He sighed to himself as he started up the front oven burner. He couldn’t help but feel that his mum and “will” were moving a bit fast. Funny words coming from him, but Will made him uncomfortable somehow. After his cooking project and “small” breakfast, he grabbed his Earbuds from his room and ran out the door, heading for the small house with Christmas lights hung year round. Mr. Barnum was outside when peter reached his house, squinting at his wall. 

“What are you doing out here? It’s so freaking hot.” Peter asked as he hopped over the fence and strolled up to the old man.

“Just doing so cleaning.” Barnum answered. He stepped back to look at the wall of his residence and frowned. 

“Shouldn’t up be resting, you’re still recovering.” Peter pointed out, but Barnum didn’t seem to care. 

“Mmm, probably. Make yourself useful, grab a sponge.” 

“Awww, fine.” Peter fake whined and grabbed the extra scrub brush from the windowsill. “What am I helping with, anyway?” 

“Some kids vandalized my house. I’m cleaning it off.” He said as he squinted against the sun and waved to the front wall. Peter stepped next to him and followed the waves of the mutant’s hand. 

MUTANT 

Was painted in bright red letters, the M and the U were partially worn off from where Barnum had been scrubbing. 

“That’s so uncool on so many levels.” Peter said. It felt like an understatement, but his brain had basically frozen up after he saw it. The idea, no the fact, that someone would do that, to an old man for that matter, was nauseating. 

“Tell me about it, now get to work.” 

“Alright, alright, cool your jets.” Peter forced grin and used his speed to finish the job. “There, good as new.” He said as he tossed the used brush into the bucket with a splash and wiped his hands on his jeans. Scrubbing the paint off the wall was harder than he thought, but He didn’t care how much he had to do. Vandalizing Barnum like that Wasn’t right and he aimed to fix it. 

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Barnum wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked back towards his front door. “You thirsty?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” 

The rest of the afternoon peter and Barnum hung out at the older man’s house. Peter eagerly helped with any chores the latter hadn’t gotten a chance to do with his still healing side. After a long afternoon, they settled down at the kitchen table for another glass of lemonade. 

“So, I heard that a couple of my arcade units went missing from my place, did you have anything to do with that?” Greg poured the speedster Another glass of lemonade and leaned back in his chair with a happy sigh 

“I might have....but I have a reason.” 

“I heard what they did.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Keep them.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes, you rightfully stole them, and I’d rather you have them than those politicians who seized the arcade.”

“Wow, thanks!” Peter said. He hadn’t been expecting that, but then again he didn’t expect anything that Barnum did. Peter checked his watch out of habit and almost cursed. “Aww crap, it’s 5:15.” 

“What’s so special about 5:15?”

“I’m supposed to be home at 5:00. I gotta go, thanks for the lemonade, Mr Barnum.” 

“No, thank you, Peter, it would have taken me hours to get that stuff off the wall without you.” 

“Don’t mention it, it’s the least I can do.” Peter called back into the house from the doorway. The door closed with a click, Peter was gone before Barnum heard the noise.  
————————————————-  
He reached his house in a minute, not quite pushing himself to full speed so he didn’t look exhausted when he got back and had to inhale enough food for an army. When he moved to open the door he was shocked to see it was cracked, it was never cracked. Magda was protective of Peter and Jess, especially after the trial. She kept it bolted 24/7, afraid of the mutant haters. Peter pushed the door open, the lock had been forced. 

“mum? mum?! Jess?!” He called out. The nervous reply of his mother came from upstairs. 

“We’re up here!” 

Peter bolted up the stairs, something wasn’t right. He appeared in the doorway to his mother’s room before she had fully finished her answer to his calls. A man, her boyfriend, Will stood beside the kneeling Magda. Hand entangled gruffly in her hair, forcing her head back. he held a gun to her temple. 

Peter’s eyes widened when he saw her, a lump developed in his throat, along with a knot in his gut. Without a second thought she charged at Will, but he never reached him. he bounced off something blocking his way to his mom. 

“You didn’t think it’d be that easy did you?” Will taunted. 

“Peter, please, grab Jess, she’s downstairs, take her and run” Pleaded Magda, her gaze focused on her son. Peter looked from her to Will several times, meaning to run, but his legs wouldn’t listen to him.

“Do that and she dies, not that you’d be able to get your sister out either, she’s behind one of these handy barriers too.” Will said casually with a wave around at the invisible barrier. 

“What do you want?” Asked Peter, struggling to keep his voice steady. 

“You, actually. there’s no need for your mother and sister to get hurt, just as long as you play along.” Will explained and pulled Magda’s head back a bit closer to his gun. 

It clicked in Peter’s head the point of all this. Will had begun dating his mother to get close to him, if he’d just paid attention he could have stopped this. He had a bad feeling about the whole thing and he didn’t say anything and man was he regretting it. “And if I don’t...they die?” 

“That’s the idea” will smirked at him. “Even if you did manage to make your way through the barrier in time, there’s no way you could save both of them. “

“Peter, just get Jess out of here. Please.” 

“Mum, no! I’m not going to let him kill you.” Peter answered immediately. He saw no way out of this situation. Will had him pinned, he was fast, sure, but he wasn’t indestructible, and neither was his family. He could maybe save one of them, just maybe, if there was a way to disable the shield between him and them, but he couldn’t take that risk. “What am I supposed to do?”

Will smirked. Again. He was already getting tired of that self satisfied smile. The next thing that came out of his mouth made Peter wish he could run in and smack that sick grin off his face even more than before. “Don’t run for starters.” Will started. “My men are going to come in, don’t resist them or your family dies. Let them handcuff you, and sedate you. Do that and I let them go, and won’t hurt a hair on their heads, deal?” 

Peter shifted his weight from foot to foot, silently tapping his hand on his leg. He thought back to his mother’s words “if anyone comes to hurt you, you use every power you’ve got.” But this was different. Jess and his Mum were here this time. He couldn’t just let them get shot. He nodded, defeated. 

“No, Peter, please. You can get Jess, just-“

“Shut up” Will interjected, craning Magda’s neck into an uncomfortable position as he reached for his radio.  
“He’s agreed, carry out your orders.” 

Peter couldn’t bear to look at his mom, though he could hear her crying. The second he had given in she started sobbing. Peter just stared at his sliver trainers and tried not to vibrate. They heard the stomping of boots marching up the stares. Peter stiffened as the men entered; one man carried two heavy sets of handcuffs which Peter guessed was their way of retraining him. The two other men immediately grabbed Peter like he was going to change his mind and bolt at any second. 

“Easy!” Snapped Peter as the men holding him gruffly squeezed an arm each, forcing them behind his back to present it to the man with the handcuffs. Peter’s wrists and ankles were firmly cuffed together in a matter of seconds and he is pushed to his knees. At least the were quick about it. 

“Time for your end of the deal, let them go.” Peter demanded, glaring daggers up at Will.

Will let go of Magda and she crumbled to the ground with a sob. He gave orders into his radio to release the sister; He must have made the barrier fall because Magda crawled over to Peter and slung her arms around his shoulders, still sobbing. 

“It’ll be okay” He comforted the best he could, wanting to give her a reassuring hug, but his arms were locked too tightly behind him. “I’ll be fine, you need to get Jess out of here, please mum. Just get out of here.” 

“My baby, ohh my sweet baby” she cried into her son’s shoulder. Peter’s heart twisted in his chest. How had he let it get this far? It was only ever a few Twinkies, okay, and arcade machines. And then his face was all over the news and now he was here. Tied up and about to be hauled off to who knows where. Will had seen enough, he grabbed Magda by the wrist and pulled her off Peter. 

“You heard him, get out of here.” He growled him Magda’s face. 

“Please, please! don’t hurt him! I’m begging you” as she sobbed Jess was led upstairs, she was crying too. Peter looked up at his younger sister. 

“Take care of her” he instructed. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” Jess nodded, sniffed and wiped her eyes. She was trying so so hard to be brave, but fell right back into tears with what Will said next. 

“Sedate him, we have what we came for. “ 

Peter’s skin crawled as soon as the words left Will’s mouth. He wanted so badly to run, but he’d given up that right. At least Jess and Magda would be safe.  
The men did as ordered and placed the end of a huge syringe into Peter’s neck after redirecting is head to look straight in front of him. He hissed as it punctured his skin, but stayed still as his world began to swim and fuzz. The drug worked fast; he was out cold in a few seconds.


	12. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter learns pretty quickly this isn’t going to go well for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! We’re getting to my favorite part of this story, the next chapter is my favorite and should be up tomorrow or maybe even later today. Comment with your thoughts, I’d love that so so much.

Drugs don’t usually last long on Peter, and this was no exception. Even with the wacked out dose Will had given him, he jolted wake in a few hours. He woke in what appeared to be the back of a Jeep of sorts. He had been placed in the gap between the front and back seats, leaning against the door to the car. 

“Great” he scoffed as he tried to move, only to find his ankles cuffed together His head was pounding, and he felt sluggish, go figure, that’s what happened when you let a psycho stick a needle in your neck. Peter looked around the Jeep as his vision blurred back into focus. In the front sat a man driving and Will (there were several names he wanted to call him, but now might not be the time. In the back there was a man down by Peter’s legs with an automatic gun locked on the speedster. 

“You’re awake.” Will said. Peter jumped a little at his voice and he let hi gaze slipped from the machine gun to Will in the passenger seat. It took peter a moment to work past the chill that ran up his spine when he saw Will smirking in the front seat, but he eventually found his words again. 

“Obviously...so, your real name isn’t Will, is it. Crap head seems more fitting.” Peter said with much less gusto than he wanted. 

“William Stryker.” 

That name didn’t mean much to Peter, besides of course it was the name of his kidnapper. He filed that information away in the more useless fact section and He zoned out. His thoughts jumped to Jess and his mum; did this Stryker guy really let them go? He hoped more than anything he did. No matter what happened to him, they would be alright. He sighed and clenched his fists as his eyes started stinging. He would not cry in front of these guys. 

“you’ll be better off if you cooperate.” Stryker said in the front seat as casually as if he was discussing the weather. I still know where your family lives.” He turned to flash Peter a satisfied smile. Peter’s fear boiled almost instantly into red hot anger. 

“You said if I came peacefully from the house you wouldn’t hurt a hair on their heads.” Peter hissed. “Our deal still applies, you can’t threaten them.” 

Stryker raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t exactly in the best position to make demands” 

“It’s not a demand, it’s holding you to your word!” Peter yelled and lunged at Stryker. He didn’t flinch, but the guard shoved the barrel of his gun into peter’s shoulder and forced him back against the door. 

“I said I wouldn’t hurt a hair on their heads if you played along, we aren’t done playing.” Stryker said once Peter was pinned again, though he was still visibly seething. 

“How much is there to your stupid game?” Peter growled. Stryker didn’t respond, he just turned to face the road with the same sick grin plastered across his face. 

“What is your game?!” Still no response. “Okay fine, where are you taking me?..... ugh. What will you tell me?” 

“To shut up.” Remarked the man by Peter’s feet. Stryker and the driver got a kick out of that. He cracked into a dry laughed and shook his head. Peter scowled and curled in on himself as the men around kept laughing. 

“And what to do.” Stryker said once his laughter finally trailed off. 

“You guys are sick!” Peter spat. “Kidnapping teenagers! What is wrong with you people?!”

“Shut up.” Chuckled the man in backseat as he nudged Peter’s feet with the barrel of his gun. Peter snapped his feet closer to his chest, but he barely had enough room as it was. He was a 16 not 5, he didn’t exactly fit comfortably between the seats. They drove in silence for about five minutes before peter couldn’t stand it anymore. 

“Okay, you guys got me, right?! Tied up in the back of your evil army- whateveritis-car, so what’s the problem with telling me what’s happening?! Or at least how long I was out, or if you really did let them go, how do I know you didn’t turn around and capture them when I was out? 

“I held up my end of the bargain, now shut up or I’ll have him gag you. I’m tired of your yapping.” Stryker ordered, turning to stare at peter. It sent chills down the speedster’s spine when he said the word gag. He shut up, though he wasn’t happy about it, he’d prefer to keep his own mouth closed than have a rag shoved in it. The car bumped along for another hour or so, though it felt like 5 to Peter. 

Upon Reaching their destination the men uploaded and the door behind Peter’s back opened. He would have tumbled out if he hadn’t been ready for it. When the door opened Peter leaned forward and waited, as soon as he felt the man go to grab him he launched into the man’s torso, sending him flying backwards. Peter didn’t fully think this through, how would he get out of the car now? He made up his mind on rolling out. Having achieved this he had to find a way to get on his still bound feet. With his arms still stuck behind his back it would be difficult. He found a way, but was too concentrated on what he was doing to notice Stryker and the driver running towards him. As soon as he made it to his feet he was tackled by the driver, Stryker kelt down next to Peter’s face as he tried to buck the driver off his back. 

“We can’t have that.” Stryker shook his head. “I told you I’d be easier if you went along with what I told you, but you seem to have decided otherwise.”

“Tell your brute to get off me!!!!” Peter yelled best he could, but the driver was pushing his head into the ground and making it a pain to get even a breath into his lungs. 

“No I think not.” He said standing up. He yelled at someone out of Peter’s line of sight. “Get me the sedative!” 

Peter thrashed about on the ground at incomprable speeds. He had almost bucked the driver off of his back when Stryker kelt down beside him with wicked looking syringe and tutted. 

“I’ve had enough of this.” hold still.”   
“Don’t come near me with that thing!” Peter yelled with another wave of thrashing. The driver cursed and nearly fell off of the speedster when Stryker grabbed a handful of his silver hair. He ground Peter’s skull further into the floor to keep him still as he stuck the needle in his neck. 

With a strangled gasp Peter relaxed, fading into a forced sleep.


	13. Waking up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter wakes up and meets a few fellow people unfortunate enough to fine themselves with Stryker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! Okay, this is probably one of my personal favorites as chapters go. We have a few new faces in here, Heheheheh. Enjoy, comment with any thoughts, especially on this one. ;)

Peter woke groggily in a couple hours. His head pounded like someone was ramming a hammer against the inside of his skull in a desperate attempt to get out. He blinked a few times to let his eyes adjust to the dim light and clear the last of the drug induced blurriness. 

“Psst.” Someone whispered from the darkness. Peter sat up and winced as the pounding in his head pulsed stronger when he moved. When he got his bearings he noticed another boy across from him, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Two heavy sets of bars divided the space between them. It only took Peter a second to realize that they were in cages. Before he could panic, the boy spoke again. 

Hey” the boy whispered. “You okay? They kind of just threw you on the floor” 

“Yeah” Peter said, rubbing the back of his aching head. “Just pissed at these sons of....” He noticed a little girl behind the blonde boy and trailed off. 

“This is kitty” the boy said, nudging her forward. “I’m Bobby, and that one over there is  
John.” He waved a hand vaguely behind him. Peter squinted in that direction, but couldn’t make out anymore than a black blob that gave a grunt in response. “He’s not usually that, uh, distant. He’s...he’s had a rough day.” Peter was about to ask what that rough day included because he was almost positive it wasn’t as bad as his, but Bobby kept going. “We’re just as mad as you,” He continued. “don’t know what to do about it though.”

“I’ll blow their brains out of their head before they even know happening,” Peter stated matter of factly. “just as soon as they try to come get me.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work.” Bobby started, shaking his head. 

“And why’s that?” Peter raised an eyebrow, the kid was obviously not picking up on his mutation, but then again he’d only known him for the whole of 45 seconds. 

“Umm” Bobby pointed down at Peter’s feet, a thick shackle was fastened around each of his ankles, accompanied by a sturdy chain locked to opposite sides of his cage. 

“What the...ugh!” Peter huffed. “They barely gave me a foot to move around!” the chains were almost pulled tight if he was standing in the middle of the cell. 

“So you’re a mutant, right?” Bobby asked. 

Peter froze at the dumbness of that question. “Yeah, why else would I be here? And I assume you and kitty are too. What’s your power?” 

“Ice blasts, and cold resistance.” Bobby shrugged. “Kitty can run through walls, well, most walls, not these, she can’t run through lead for some reason. How about you?”

“Guess.” Peter quipped, sitting back down from testing the range of his chains. The give in the chains was annoyingly small. 

“Does the hair have something to do with it, or is it dyed?” 

“It’s part of it” 

“Control over metal?” 

“Nope.” 

“Control over smoke?” 

“No”

“Control over...”

“Wrong again” Peter interrupted. 

“Super speed!” Kitty piped up, eyes lighting up in anticipation of Peter’s answer. Peter melted a little inside at the sight of her bobbing up and down with excitement. It reminded him of Jess. 

“Finally!” Peter said with a grin.

“How’d you know?” Bobby laughed. 

“His shoes! There’re all burnt, and why else would they chain his legs up?” Kitty explained. 

“Hey, wait a sec, you guys aren’t chained up are you?” Peter asked, squinting at the kids in the cage beside him. “And you are in there together, why am I all alone?” 

“You’re more powerful, like you said you’d blow their brains out, as to why you’re alone...” Bobby points at a label on the outside of Peter’s cell. It read only the number eight. 

“So, what does that mean?” 

“You’re a level eight, we are only a level five, three of us can be in a cage at the same time.” 

“Well that sucks.” Peter said sulkily. 

“Yeah, well this whole situation sucks.” John spoke for the first time and limped over to the side of the cage. He had dark circles under his eyes, most likely from lack of sleep that clashed with his bright red hair. And by the grimace on his face, Peter guessed he was in pain. When he reached the side of the cage, which took long enough for Peter to have plenty of time to study him, he sat back down with a wince and a sigh. 

“I’m John, as Bobby said. Fire powers. How old are you?” 

“16, you?” 

“Bobby and I are 14, I’m almost 15, and kitty’s 8. 

“How’d they grab you, if you have super speed?” Kitty asked before Peter could question John about why he was limping. 

Peter looked down at the floor. “He had my mom and sister, he said if I played along he’d let them go. I let them do it and got a needle in the neck before waking up here.” He took a deep breath and shook off the feeling of dread creeping up on him. “Where is here, exactly?”

“No idea.” Bobby sighed, sliding down the bars to the ground where he sat sulking. 

“Great.” Peter whispered sarcastically. “I’m guessing they don’t just let us rot in these cages?” 

“Nope, they pick and choose some of us, take them off to testing, you got here some time in the night, everyone else is asleep.” Bobby motioned around them, for the first time peter looked around beyond just his and the kids’ cage. All around were other cages, some had two people, others three, very few had only one. 

“So, if it’s the middle of the night, why are you awake?” 

Peter’s question was met only with silence as Bobby glanced tentatively at John who was resting his head between his knees. After a moment Bobby found the guts to answer. 

“John got brought back from testing.” He said with a slight wince. “And it was loud.” 

Peter nodded as he put two and two together. John must have given them hell and gotten beaten to a pulp because of it. Peter looked over at him again, trying to make out any injuries he hadn’t noticed before, but it was too dark. After almost a minute of staring his stomach growled at him. 

“Dang......I’m hungry.” He whispered to himself, only now realizing how long it had been since he had eaten when a buzz sounded and a door opened several yards away from Peter and the others. light flooded the path down Peter’s row, illuminating the cells with an Erie shadow cast from the bars. Several people entered, some carrying trays, other armed with guns. 

“Hey!!” Peter shouted to one of the men. “You got any food? I’m going to pass out!” The man didn’t acknowledge Peter; he just opened the door to Peter’s cage and slid a total of five trays over to the speedster. This was repeated with the other cells.

“What’s with the extra food, why’d you get so much more?” John asked with a slight scowl. 

“Same reason I’m chained to the floor and you aren’t.” Peter said with his mouth full. “This still isn’t enough, so...” he trailed off in favor of another bite. It may not have tasted much better than cardboard, but he was staving. When Peter finished up his last tray. His stomach gave an unsatisfied growl. 

“You want some of mine?” Offered Kitty, holding out her remaining food, though not in Peter’s reach. 

“No thanks, you need it.” 

“But so do you, right?”

“I’d rather you have it, I’ll just make sure they know I need more later.” He doubted whether that would work, but he wasn’t about to take an 8 year old’s breakfast. She reminded him so much of Jess, the way she smiled and her face scrunched up when she laughed. Peter sighed. He already missed his sister and it hadn’t even been 24 hours. Well, he didn’t know how long it had been, but he was never good with time anyway. 

Once John got some food in him, his scowl faded and he leaned against the bars with a tired sigh. As Bobby and kitty drifted off to sleep, he watched Peter fidget like mad in his cell. 

“Sorry about snapping at you, I, uh, don’t feel super great.” He said after a while. Peter looked up, frozen like a deer in headlights before he shook his head and waved a hand in dismissal. 

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve had a rough day too” they sat in silence for a few minutes before peter asked: “so do you have any siblings?” 

John looked taken aback for a second before he processed the question. “Oh, no, just me, my mom and my dad. How about you?”

“I have a sister, Jess, and my mum.” The silence returned for a moment until peter thought of another question. 

“So where are you from?”

“Florida, well, now we live in New York...” John said as his scowl returned, but this time it was sorrowful, not angry. 

“Why’d you move? Your dad get a new job?” 

John shrugged and looked away. “Stuff happened.” The silence returned for a third time and Peter didn’t have the energy to get it started again. A few minutes later John was asleep and Peter followed suit a few after that.


	14. Morning Maximoff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the next morning rolls around, Peter figures out that even with his powers he can’t always win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! Wednesday update, woohoo. This one isn’t that long, but that’s because I’m working on bulking up the next chapter. That should come out on Friday or Saturday depending on how that goes. Comment with any questions, I’m happy to answer, and I’d love to know what you all think of John and Bobby.   
> Stay safe with the virus and enjoy!

Peter jolted awake as the door opened again with a bang and the the flood of light returned. Willian Stryker strode down the row of cages until he reached peter. He crossed his arms and looked down on him as Peter sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. 

“Morning maximoff.” Stryker teased. “How’s the head?” 

“Like hell, what do you want?” Peter glared at him. 

“To run some tests...see what I did there?” William laughed stalely at his own pun. Peter rolled his eyes.

“Well I want a crap head to stop ordering me around, see what I did there?” Peter grinned dryly. He tried his best to shove his fear down as Stryker rolled his eyes and waved his men over as he said: “on your feet brat. Let my men do their thing.”

John, Bobby, and kitty in the neighboring cage watched wide eyed as Peter’s eyebrow shot up at Stryker’s command and he laid back in his cell and closed his eyes before he slowly, for him at least, raised his hand and flipped Stryker off. Bobby and John both burst out laughing, Kitty hid her giggles in John’s shoulder. Stryker side eyed the younger kids, but remained focused on peter. He turned and marched out of the room muttering to himself. 

Peter opened his eyes and whispered to the kids across from him. “I’m tired of his crap.” Their smiles alleviated the anxiety butterflies in his stomach. He knew Stryker would be back with a vengeance, but the looks on their faces were worth it. 

“Dude! That was the best thing ever!” Bobby laughed, John nodded vigorously in agreement.

“It’s what I’m best at, except maybe for running...and eating.” Peter smiled. “I wish I had seen the look on his face.” 

“It was awesome. He was all like:’wHaT?!?!’” John reenacted his Stryker’s actions with a goofy exaggerated expression; sending them all into another laughing fit. The mutants around them didn’t seem to find it as funny. 

When The door slammed into the holding room wall with a crash Stryker stormed back in with four soldiers in tow. The three young mutants grabbed their cells bars as they watched the soldiers progress towards Peter’s cage. Their eyes wide with fear as Peter shot them a quick glance before Stryker pulled the cell door open in a rage. 

“Get him up and ready to go.” He ordered to his men. Peter’s blood turned cold as they approached him. he backed up as far as the chains would let him, which was only six inches or so. The men didn’t grab him right away, he landed a solid punch in one man’s face causing him to fall against the side of the cage. But peter was soon overpowered without room to move around and two men held him standing, arms pulled uncomfortably tight behind his back. Stryker sneered at him. 

“You’d cooperate if you know what’s good for you.” 

“You’d tell your men to let go of me if you know what’s good for you!” He Snapped back, struggling in the guards’ iron grip. 

“I’m only going to say this once, you are going to run for me, and if you don’t I’ll send my men back to murder your mom and sister.”

Peter froze and stared at Stryker. For a long few seconds the only sound was his heart beating like a drum in his chest. He swallowed down his panic and straightened as much as he could with the guards holding him back. “They’re long gone by now.” Peter said after a long second. “It doesn’t matter if you send your men after them, they know what to do. You’ll never find them.” 

From the neighboring cage, Peter heard John and Bobby gasp a little, but it was cut off as Stryker started laughing and shook his head.   
“You know son, you’ve got me there.” Stryker chuckled. “But if you don’t want some very unpleasant things to happen to you, you will run when and where I tell you.” 

“Go screw yourself.” 

Stryker glanced at his men and back to Peter with a smirk. “Suit yourself, kid, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He said as he waved to his guards and gave them orders to go get something. They returned with a leather collar. Peter didn’t get the chance to get a good look at it before Stryker himself stalked into the cage. he grabbed a handful of the Peter’s silver hair and pulled his head back to get a better view of his neck.

“I tried to warn you.” He locked the collar on peter, grinning as he watched him reorient himself after the vise-grip on his hair. Peter glared at him and lashed out against the guards holding his arms. Stryker grinned again and flipped a switch on his belt. 

Peter sagged is the guards’ arms. The electricity from the collar pulled a scream out of the boy like no sound he’d ever heard. He was barely aware he was the one screaming past the burning pain that flooded his every sense. Stryker let up on the button after five seconds, leaving Peter gasping for every painful breath. 

“You’re sick!” John shouted from the other cage. As soon as the collar came out he was on his feet and glaring even harder at Stryker. The general pivoted to face him with a self satisfied smile. 

“Cool it, hot rod, you’re still on my bad side after that stunt you pulled yesterday. You don’t want to go through that again do you?” 

John balled his hands into fists as his eyes started glowing red. “You jackass, when are you going to realize that mutants are people too! You can’t collar them like dogs!!” 

“I can, I have, and I’ll do it to you if you don’t straighten up.” Stryker said. “It’s all in the name of science.” 

“This isn’t science.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, kid.” Stryker chuckled and shook his head before turning to his men with a wave towards the door. “Let’s get him ready to run, gents.” 

The guards followed Stryker out of the room, dragging Peter between them as he tried to get his legs to work again. He managed a glance back and Bobby, kitty and John before the door slammed behind him.


	15. The machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter runs. John fights back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This took a while to crank out, but I hope you like it. Let me know what you think, I welcome any comments or questions :) thanks for the support, guys!

After a long trek down a hallway, Stryker’s men dumped peter on the concrete floor with a thud that echoed around the nearly empty room.   
Peter caught himself, jumped to his feet, twisted around, and punched one of the guards in the nose with a satisfying crunch. The man ducked back, holding his nose, and Peter took a swing at the other man only for the collar to turn on before his punch landed.   
Peter dropped to his knees and then completely to the floor as his muscles seized up from the electricity. He screamed involuntary for only a few seconds before his jaw locked up and he jackknifed on the floor.  
When the collar switched off, the world was still spinning. Everything was buzzing with the aftermath of the shock. His skull felt like it was about to split open after being hammered into the floor. Peter groaned, tried to roll over, and gave up to stare up at the ceiling. 

“That was a dumb-ass move, kid.” Stryker said from somewhere above him with his voice distorted and echoing like they were in an under water cave. “I thought you’d be smarter than that, but I guess I was wrong.” He turned to his men, or that’s what Peter gathered from the scratchy footsteps and whispered conversation. If he had more energy, Peter would have tried to hear what they were saying, but his head pounded too much focus on the words.   
What felt like ages later, someone locked some kind of cuffs around his wrists. He scowled at them, but they didn’t seem to care, and really didn’t care when he told them they were too tight. After they finished that, they yanked on his hair, doing no favors for his headache, until he looked up at Stryker. 

“Now, listen maximoff, I want you to run, and run until I say stop, understand?” The general said from when he knelt in front of the speedster. Peter understood perfectly, but he didn’t give a crap. There was no way he could run with how he felt, plus he hadn’t eat in hours. He needed fuel and he needed the stupid collar to stop turning on. 

“I can’t run on an empty tank.” Peter said and hissed as the man pulled on his hair. “Food, or I don’t run.” Stryker shook his head and laughed as he fingered the remote.  
“How about I shock you again, you run, and then I’ll give you food.” Peter froze as Stryker’s finger got closer to the button. The general just laughed. “I can tell you’re scared, now get on the machine and run or I’ll leave it on for a whole minute.” 

Peter hesitated for a second, but as soon as Stryker’s finger inched closer to the remote he nodded and scowled. As much as he hated it, he didn’t think he could tale much more of the collar. “What machine?” 

Stryker laughed again and nodded behind him. “The one you’re chained to, genius.” He said. “Now get moving.” 

Sure enough, as the guards pulled Peter to his feet, a treadmill came into view. The cuffs around his wrists linked to the front of the machine without enough slack to have a chance of getting to the door. As the guards dragged him, still twitching from the shock, over to the treadmill, Peter wondered vaguely if he could vibrate fast enough to break the cuffs, just as he did the glass. he didn’t get a chance to give his theory a try; the men kept a vise grip on his arms until the treadmill switched on. 

Stryker flipped it on with a smirk. Peter glared at him as the machine groaned to life and he started jogging. it started out annoyingly slowly for Peter, even though he was still recovering from the shock, but it sped up rather quickly; Soon he was actually having to try the keep up with the machine. The general didn’t seem to understand that five minutes of full out running for peter was like five hours or more to him, which is why the machine was still running after fifteen minutes. The machine far from pushed him to full speed, but the nonstop stamina run was enough to fully drain him. His lungs burned and turned every breath into feeling like he was inhaling hot sand. His legs felt like they would liquify at any second, but that was nothing compared to how hungry he was. For once, every second blurred together into an unintelligible mass. Peter focused on putting one foot in front of the other and tried to ignore how the corners of his vision started to blur. He loved running, he lived for it, but running facing a wall with the paint peeling off of it with nothing but the threat of a shock to keep him going somehow sucked all the fun out of it. As the minutes ticked close to twenty, Peter was sure he’d collapse any second. 

“I...can’t...keep...going.” Peter gasped between breaths. Somewhere out to the side, Stryker scoffed: “Save your breath.” If he had the energy, Peter would have yelled at him, but if he tried he’d just fall faster.   
Still the treadmill groaned on for another five minutes before finally turning off. As the belt rolled to a stop peter dropped down to his knees, sucking in as much breath as he could. Stryker laughed again. Peter was really beginning to hate that sound, but he didn’t have too much time to think about it. With a glare over at Stryker, he blacked out. 

He woke once again in his cage, head pounding with the room still spinning around him. the three kids housed beside him all leaned through the bars to make sure he was okay. 

“Peter, Peter, please wake up.” Kitty whimpered. Peter turned his head towards her and immediately regretted it as his headache spiked. His limbs felt like they were made of lead and as he moved his stomach growled again. He sat up slowly, trying to get his vision to clear, but John, Bobby, and kitty were all just fleshy colored blobs. 

“What? How long was I out?” Peter asked. The blob that was John shrugged. 

“A few hours.” He said. “You don’t look so good.” 

“I’m hungry.” Was all peter could force himself to say. With the adrenaline gone, it felt like he’d had his insides vacuumed out. He was shaking and freezing cold, something he was quite familiar with. It hadn’t gotten this bad in a while, he always fed himself when he got even a little hungry after that one time when he forgot and passed out in the middle of class. Bobby, John, and kitty mustn’t have known what to say, because they didn’t answer. Peter hoped Stryker was true to his word, or he would be unconscious before too long. 

Luckily enough, Stryker sent food to Peter. He was still hungry, but at least it was something; he no longer felt on the edge of blacking out, so that was a plus. The rest of the day, Stryker let Peter rest, but dragged Bobby and John to testing. Bobby went reluctantly, but didn’t give them any trouble. John, on the other hand, gave them hell. Almost literally. 

On the way out of the cell block, the men holding John let go of him like they had been burned. Turned out they had been. John whipped around on them as fire came to life in his hands. The guards pulled out their guns, but John caught their jackets on fire before they could get a shot off. John grinned in a way Peter hadn’t seen him do since he got there as he ducked around the guards, hands still on fire. He shot fire across the room bright enough to make everyone squint, but no one could look away. Stryker’s men held their own for a minute or so, but when John lit their pants on fire, they had no choice but to stop, drop, and roll, giving John and chance to make a break for the door. 

Over the shrieking of the smoke alarms, Bobby and Peter cheered him on the whole way. John reached the door and punched in the key code he had seen the soldiers use so many times. The door slid open, John ran out and smashed into Stryker. It only took John a second to get back on his feet, but the warning Peter and Bobby shouted came a second too late. 

Stryker sprayed John with the fire extinguisher he held tucked under one arm. John’s powers frizzled out and went down as soon as the extinguisher foam hit him. He sucked in a breath and bit his lip as he tried to scramble away from Stryker and get his powers to kick back on. The general laughed and sprayed him again, sending John into a violent coughing fit and finishing off any fire he had managed to summon. John crawled away from the general, but he kept up with him easily. Again, Stryker hit him and John didn’t have the energy to scoot away. He curled up into a ball, covered his head, and coughed and coughed, but Stryker didn’t ease up. Finally, After John was a shaking mess and had coughed so hard he threw up, he threw the extinguisher to the side and it clattered to the floor. Stryker walked over and nudged John with his foot, but he didn’t budge. 

“Get up.” He grunted, but John couldn’t do more than cough and groan in response. The stuff from the fire extinguisher had obviously done something too him tat wasn’t normal. It must be a side effect of his powers. Stryker rolled his eyes, grabbed John’s collar and pulled him to his feet. “Why did you think that escape plan would work?” 

“Piss off.” John managed between coughs. Stryker laughed and without warning punched him in the stomach so hard he doubled over. John groaned and looked up in time to catch a backhanded slap across the face strong enough to snap his head to the side. Even though he wasn’t exactly crying, his eyes were watering and he looked blotchy like he was having an allergic reaction to something. Stryker seemed unsurprised at his state; Peter’s stomach twisted when he realized this probably wasn’t the first time he’d sprayed John down with a fire extinguisher. 

“Next time, think your actions through.” Stryker growled In his ear and punched him again. “I’m going to make sure you don’t forget how much you screwed up.” John wheezed in a breath, another tribute to having an allergic reaction, but just glared up at Stryker. He knew when he was beat. The general kept a firm grip on John’s collar and dragged him over to the squad leader who was supposed to be escorting him. John pulled against him, but the struggle left him when Stryker shook him so had he launched into another coughing fit. The squad leader’s jacket was still smoking from where it had caught on fire, but he seemed more bothered by the look on Stryker’s face than the state of his clothes. He pulled himself to attention as Stryker reached him. 

“Get him to thermal testing.” The general said and tossed John forward like he only weighed ten pounds. “And do it right this time, Robins.”

Robins saluted him with a robotic “yes sir” and hauled John out of the room. Kitty called after him, tears streaming down her face, to be careful. John shot them all a glance, but Robins grabbed his hair and yanked him out of the room before he could give a reassuring answer. 

The door slammed behind them, filling the room with an uncomfortable silence filled only with Kitty’s crying. Bobby comforted her the best he could, but he too was dragged away for testing a few minutes later.   
Kitty curled up in a ball in the corner of her cage and cried. 

“Hey,” Peter tried, and kitty sniffed. She looked up and wiped her nose. 

“What?” 

“Do you...” Peter trailed off and tried to think of a good question to get her mind off the situation, but he had gotten ahead of himself. His old conversations with Jess popped into his head and he continued before Kitty realized he stopped. “Like to play dress up?” 

Kitty laughed and pulled her legs closer to herself. “No, that’s silly stuff, I play with my stuffed animals.” 

Peter couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that so?” 

The rest of the afternoon, Peter tried his best to keep kitty entertained. Turns out she had just as short of an attention span as he did. He learned her favorite food, color, song, stuffed animal, movie, bedtime story, and even the name of her best friend: a stuffed kola named Mr. squiggles. When she ran out of steam, Peter took over. He taught her a few words in Romani, and sung his and Jess’ favorite lullaby their mother used to sing to them for her as the night continued on and John and Bobby still weren’t back. Bobby returned shortly after Kitty fell asleep, but there was no sign of John. 

“Did you see him?” Peter asked bobby, but he only shook his head. 

“I heard some screaming. Once or twice.” Bobby said. “But I didn’t...I don’t wanna think it was him.” Peter nodded as Bobby took a second to sniff before he went on. “John’s been braver than me the whole time I’ve been here. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t do what they say, and I-I don’t know how he does it....”

“Then he’ll be fine.” Peter tried to reassure him. “He’ll be fine.”   
....................................  
As soon as the men had left with her son, Magda switched to business mode. she had sent Jess to pack the bags while she rummaged through her purse to find the number. Bingo, she found a beat up card, it read: Xavier’s school for gifted youngsters. Under the name was the phone number and address. With shaking hands, she called ahead and told a man, apparently named hank, what happened. There was silence over the phone before he returned to the line and told her to come straight away. So that’s where Magda and Jess Maximoff found themselves: on the steps of a stranger’s house, hoping he could help them find peter. The building looked more like a mansion than a school, but Magda didn’t really care where Xavier lived as long as he could find Peter. 

Right before she knocked, the door opened, a teenage girl with red hair stood in the door way. 

“You’re the maximoffs, right?” The girl asked. 

Magda nodded and licked her lips. “Yes we’re here to see the professor.” 

The girl nodded and opened the door to let them in. The place was huge. It was a Victorian style home, saying it was anything other than a mansion would be an understatement. The girl ushered them into a large office and left them alone when a kid with red glasses came in and called her away. They weren’t alone for long. Charles entered in a wheel chair, followed by a geeky looking man with glasses. 

“Mr Xavier.” Magda began, but Xavier cut her off. 

“Charles, please.” He said and raised a hand to his temple.” There is no need to relive the painful memory, just sit tight and I can find what I need.” She looked confused. “I’m a telepath Ms. Maximoff. Just as your son is a speedster, or the speedster i suppose, his mutation is unique.” He looked at Jess for a second, a look of slight surprise crossed his face before he quickly hid it. “Maybe.....anyway I’ve already gathered the information you have on the situation, but I would like to invite you and Jess to stay for however long as you would like. I promise you, we will find peter. “

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! And for what you did at the trial...”

“No need to thank me, Ms. Maximoff. I’ll have Jean show you your rooms. Please feel at home here and don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything.” 

Magda had driven up into the mansion driveway at almost the exact time peter was singing kitty to sleep. The professor had been in Cerebro searching for a few hours when he finally found peter in a base in Utah. Charles and the x men loaded into the jet for their first official mission: rescue Peter Maximoff. The jet rose from the basketball court late the next morning.


	16. The next test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Bobby talk. Then it’s time for the next test.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monday update! Woohoo! We are getting close to the end of this one, I’m working of the sequel and I have it plotted out. Comment with any questions or feedback, I’d appreciate anything, really. Thanks guys, and enjoy! :)

Peter had no idea how late it was, or even if the morning had come and gone. All he knew was that he and Bobby hadn’t been able to fall asleep, even with how exhausted they were. John still hadn’t returned and a few times screams had carried across the base. It made them both feel sick. Peter had only known John for a day, but something about being imprisoned together formed a quick bond. 

Peter drummed his fingers against the floor as his leg bounced up and down, blurring more and more with each second. He wished he had some way to tell time, but his only source was Bobby’s best guess, and that wasn’t exactly reliable. He missed his watch, but Stryker has taken that away as soon as he got there. 

Sometime in the early morning, the door opened and flooded the cell block with light. A few of the mutants stirred, but only Bobby and Peter jumped to their feet and blinked against the glare, trying to see if John was with the men that swept in. 

Peter’s heart skipped a beat as the guards dragged in John. He wasn’t even trying to hold his own weight, he looked more like a sack than a person. The light from the hallway silhouetted him, so they couldn’t see his expression, but if Peter had to guess, John wasn’t looking so good. 

John groaned as they tossed him in the cage with Bobby, but didn’t have the strength to change positions. Bobby ran over and kelt down beside John, but hesitated. He held his hands tentatively above John, but was at a loss for what to do. 

“Hey, are you alright?” He asked after a second when John still didn’t move. The only response was something half way between a grunt and a squeak. Bobby tried again. “What’d they do to you?” Still no response. Bobby bit his lip and looked up at Peter. 

“Let him get some rest.” Peter said from the other cage. If the situation hadn’t been so serious he would have laughed at himself for being the voice of reason. That was supposed to be Jess’ job. He shoved down the pang of worry that shot up at the thought of his sister and tried to focus back on Bobby and John. “He’s exhausted, I’m sure. Let him sleep.” 

John grunted in agreement. He seemed content enough with laying on the floor just like he was. Bobby nodded and blinked back tears, but still tried to do something helpful. 

“Do you want ice for anything? Any bruises?” He asked and almost immediately John answered. 

“No.” He said as forcefully as he could, but the emphasis he wanted still fell short. “It doesn’t help anything.” 

Bobby glanced up at Peter, who shrugged. The last time he checked, ice helped with that kind of thing, but John seemed adamantly against it. 

After that, Bobby and Peter let John sleep, though they were still too antsy to get any rest. They stayed up together and stared off into space more than anything; or in Peter’s case, fidgeted like mad. He was low on energy, but his body still wouldn’t let him stay still, which was a good sign. If he couldn’t move he was screwed. Peter tried to start up a conversation again, but each time he got anywhere it seemed like Bobby would cry, so he let it die. 

The only thing Bobby seemed willing to talk about was anything that had nothing to do with himself or his life before being caught, so the conversation turned to the only other people they knew there: John and kitty. 

“John seems really protective of Kitty.” Peter said after a while. “Do you have any idea why? He said he doesn’t have any sisters.” Don’t get him wrong, Peter would kill for Kitty already, but he figured that instinct sprung from his relationship with Jess. Seeing John so quick to step in front of Kitty whenever the guards came in and how he comforted her gave him that same kind of feeling. He seemed like the older brother type. 

Bobby shrugged and glanced over at John. “They were both here before I was, Kitty just by a few days. Ever since I got here John has protected her, even from me at first. He thought I was threat, but that might have been because of my powers, you know” Bobby chuckled and sniffed again. “Standing up for her is what got him in so much trouble a couple days ago. They wanted to test a whole bunch of different things and tried to get her to phase through lead.” Bobby sighed and closed his eyes before he went on. “John wouldn’t let them take her and kept up the fight for almost an hour before they figured out what fire extinguishers did to him. He went into anaphylactic shock after Stryker doused for over a minute. Kitty tried to help, but John told her to stay away and they ended up dragging him off for testing so he wouldn’t die. And when he didn’t die they beat him up and dumped him back in here and then a few hours later you showed up.” 

“Dang.” 

“Yeah.” Bobby said and wiped his eyes. “...can we talk about something else?” 

Peter sighed, but gave in, even though he couldn’t think of anything better to talk about. The conversation died again a few minutes later. 

Hours ticked by and John still slept. eventually kitty woke up and started crying when she saw John, both from fear and relief. She ran over and tackled him in a hug. He jolted awake as soon as she jumped on him. He shouted and almost blasted her with flames before he caught himself and pulled into the hug. 

“I’m alright, Kitty, I’m just sore.” 

“You don’t look alright.” She sniffed, but didn’t pull away from the hug. 

“She’s right, you don’t.” Peter said and got a dirty look from John. “What’d they do to you, man?” John closed his eyes and sighed. 

“Stuff.” 

“That’s vague.” 

“Yeah. It is.” 

Peter got the hint and settled for scanning John for visible injuries. He had a black eye and his lip was split, but over all he didn’t look too bad, but Peter guessed what they didn’t wasn’t all that visible. He did look like he was recovering from an allergic reaction still, his breathing was hitched, uneven, and rather shallow. Peter shuttered and hoped they didn’t keep exposing him to the extinguisher foam, but he had a feeling that’s exactly what they did. 

Bobby helped John over to the side of the cage so he could sit up, where he promptly fell asleep again with Kitty still in his lap. Peter took up talking to her to get her mind off everything and it worked. The cell block was filled with her giggles as Peter told her stories about stealing a whole bunch of stuffed animals for Jess. He was so caught up in telling her how he carried the giant unicorn home on his back that he didn’t see Stryker strut in and pull out the remote. Peter was mid sentence when electricity tore through his system. 

“I’m not in the mood to have you fight me.” Stryker said as he watched Peter scream on the floor “So I decided to go ahead and give you incentive to cooperate.”

“Stop it!! You’re hurting him!” Kitty screamed at him and shook her fists in the air like she was ready to fight him. 

“Just a few seconds more.” He said and cocked his head to the side like a patient at an insane asylum; Smiling to himself as he watched peter twitch. He slowly lifted off the button, giving peter no rest before his men pulled him to his feet. Peter was too out of it to fight anything and the soldiers easily dragged him out of the room.

A long walk down a hallway, Peter coming to, and another electric shock later, he found himself in an empty room other than the chain that held his wrists together and led to the wall. Vents lined the base of the room, wrapping all the way around the walls, but they weren’t doing anything. Stryker hadn’t told peter anything to do, so he occupied himself by yelling at the door insults that would make his mother wash his mouth out, but he felt this was a proper occasion for strong language. He had been yelling for five minutes when he noticed something different. Was it colder in there? Peter’s body operated with a lower average temperature than normal people to keep from over heating while running, it was the reason he could be completely comfortable in his silver jacket and jeans when it was 80 degrees outside. So when the room began to get colder it didn’t take long before his teeth started chattering. 

“What is going on!?” He yelled at the door, but to no avail. He started pacing as the room got colder. if he didn’t his legs would start to cramp up before too long. ‘This has to be one of the tests.’ He thought to himself as he paced. Too bad anger doesn’t create heat, because if it did, Peter would not have been cold. The temperature continued to drop and the speedster’s muscles starting to cramp and complain even with the pacing. Eventually it was too cold to do anything but sit on the floor in a shivering ball. Frost crept around the vents and up the wall, but all he could do was squint at it. He scowled to himself as he shivered there. Stryker was trying to freeze him, probably to see how much he could take, and he couldn’t do anything but sit there and shake until his teeth rattled in his head. 

Peter could feel his body eating away at what calories he left to give a feeble attempt at keeping him warm. He knew it wouldn’t work. He needed to run to stay warm, he was cold just sitting in his cage, but while chained to the wall there was nothing to do but shiver until his body couldn’t handle it and he passed out. He started getting really worried when he stopped shaking. He was out of fuel. he’d go down in a minute. Sure enough, the world blurred black just a few moments later. 

He was woken unceremoniously by a soldier kicking him in the side.  
“Back off!” Peter spat at him, clamoring to his feet best he could with his bound hands. The man watched him, unimpressed, as Peter pulled against the manacles to spit in his face. The soldier stood right out of range with an amused smirk. 

“The general needs you awake for the next test, get comfortable.” The soldier taunted Peter and turned on his heel towards the door. Peter cursed at him, but could only watch as the door slammed behind him. 

Peter resumed pacing, despite how his muscles complained at the sudden shift. He noticed two things right away after the guard left: 1) it was back to a nice 75 degrees once more, 2) he was Hungry. Very very hungry. His hunger because the less important issue as thing number 1 changed rapidly. The room got hotter this time, crazy hot. Florida in the summer, but way worse kind of hot. A sudden wave of nausea hit Peter and he sat down so fast he almost threw up. This too was familiar, though not nearly as much as the cold spells. Once on summer vacation right after he got his power, Jess dared him to run the length of the Grand Canyon. It only took one heat stroke for Peter to never want to do that again. 

He sat on the floor, miserable as sweat rolled down his face and back. He was surprised he had water left to sweat, but hey, he’d take what he could get. trying to conserve energy was boring as heck, but with how tired he was getting he didn’t really care. waves of heat flowed from the vents, warbling the air around them. With a sigh Peter laid down, waiting for the inevitable moment he would black out. 

The next thing he knew he was back in his single cell, stomach growling, and head pounding like a drum. Headaches seemed like a constant thing in this place. John, Bobby, and kitty all stared at the door and ignored him completely. Peter looked from them to the door and back again. 

“What are you guys-“

All three of them shhhed him, but didn’t look away from the door. 

“Guys, seriously, you are kind of creeping me out, what is-“ this time, a bang and the tell tale sound of spraying bullets cut him off. Peter jumped to his feet, ignoring how his head swam, and watched the door just as eagerly as the rest. Even the other mutants around them whispered amongst each other and a few got to their feet. Another bang came, this time closer, and they all jumped. 

“Did someone get loose?” Peter asked. 

John shook his head and hugged kitty a little tighter from where she clung to him. “Nope, everyone is in here.” 

“Wait, does that mean-“

“I think so, kitty, we’re going home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaaaaa, finally, am I right? Thanks for reading, next chapter on Wednesday or Thursday.


	17. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The x men arrive at Stryker’s base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, uh, apology to make: I actually forgot yesterday was Wednesday, I had the chapter ready too but I thought it was Tuesday so I accidentally skipped a day. My bad. Anyway, here’s the next one. There will only be one or two chapters after this one and then the post credit scenes and the “trailer” for the next piece. Comment with any questions or feedback, come out of the shadows, guys, I don’t bite. ;)

The x men team snuck through the halls of the compound, one after the other; prepared for the soldiers’ attacks just like they’d practiced. Stryker’s men weren’t anything like the simulations Hank cooked up in the danger room, but they managed to take out wave after wave of soldiers and continued on their search for the prisoners. 

“I’m getting readings from a room at the end of this hallway.” Jean told the team through their psychic link she maintained as they stepped around the fallen guards. “That’s where they have all the mutants.” 

Scott nodded and waved for Ororo to check around the corner. She ducked around the wall and gave the signal to continue on. As they worked their way down the hall, Scott ran ahead, anxious to prove him as team leader, especially to Jean. Charles trusted him enough to lead the mission without Raven and Hank, but Scott himself had his doubts. He knew the professor let him lead because his powers weren’t the most useful; the fact stung a little, but he fit into the team captain role smoothly. At least, nothing had gone wrong...yet. 

Scott did the best to shake his doubts out of his mind and focused back on the mission. Getting the captured mutants out was the important part, not what charles, or Jean, thought of him. 

“Guys, over here.” He called through the link and a few seconds later, Jean, Ororo, and Kurt arrived beside him in front of a solid steel door. 

“This must be it.” Ororo whispered. “None of the others have this kind of security.” 

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.” Scott said as he looked over the key pad. “Now how are we going to get in? Kurt, can you teleport us in there?” 

“No, I can’t see inside.” Kurt said, tail flicking side to side with nervous energy. “you could melt the door.” 

Scott nearly facepalmed. Of the things that made up the small list of what his powers were useful for, blasting down doors was at the top. He nodded to his team and waved them back, just in case. With a shaky breath, he steadied himself just like Alex had taught him and flipped a switch on his visor. With a hum, a red beam of light shot from the visor, or rather his eyes, and knocked the door clean off its hinges with a crash that made Scott wince. 

“Way to go Scott.” Jean said as she and the other two ran to catch up with him. Scott couldn’t help his smile, no matter how hard he tried and settled for a nod to the now gaping hole where the door once was. 

“We aren’t done yet, come on.” 

The young x men stepped through the clearing smoke into the room filled with cages. Scott coughed as the dust cloud from the door hit him in the face and squinted around, trying to get his bearings. The cages stretched to the back of the room, most with a few people in them. A couple had one person and even fewer had none. Scott muttered a curse as his assessed the situation. The mutants housed in them had all whipped around to look at the door when it clanged onto the concrete foundation, understandably so, but now Scott realized just how loud that was. They didn’t have long until the cavalry showed up and they’d be in trouble. 

“Split up, get the cages open.” Scott ordered, as he started down the middle row of cages. The team obeyed, using their combined powers to blast the cells open. All the mutants were buzzing with excitement; they stood eagerly on the side closest to their rescuers, all but one kid, who was forced to stay in the middle of the cell, out of reach of the bars. But he was no less excited as he watched the progress of the x men down his row. he was almost vibrating with anticipation of being able to run again. Scott melted the locks off the cages after he tried to fully blast one off, only to have it shatter and almost take out Jean. He’d have to do this the slow way, but not everyone seemed happy about that. 

“Hey! I can help, get me out and I can get people outside!” A teen with silver hair called from a few cages down. Scott internally gave him a dirty look. 

“Hold on.” Scott yelled back and focused on keeping his aim on the cell door. ‘Everyone in here has powers that could help, so cool your jets’ Scott thought to himself with a scowl just as the lock he was working on gave way and what was left of it clanged to the floor. The kids inside, they couldn’t be older than ten, hugged him and started crying into his mission suit. He gave them a short hug in return before the sound of footsteps made them all turn towards the doorway. 

Stryker’s reinforcements flooded into the room, armed with rifles and stun guns with target lasers that shown through the smoke pouring out of the canister they had thrown in. The kids at his waste hugged him tighter and started screaming so loudly Scott thought their mutations might very well be sonic screaming. Though that probably wasn’t the case, most of the mutants had started screaming as soon as the men drew their guns. The soldiers were yelling too, something about dropping all weapons, but Scott didn’t have time to think about that. He shoved the twins over to Kurt and reverted to the psychic link. It would be useless to try to shout over the noise. 

‘Jean, freeze them!’ Scott yelled desperately in his head as the soldiers filed out across the room. Across the row from Scott, Jean closed her eyes and raised her hands out towards the men.

“Hands up! Or we will shoot.” Barked the superior officer, Scott doubted that they wouldn’t shoot even if they did put their hands down, but it didn’t matter. Jean clenched her fists and the men froze, guns still raised. 

“I can’t hold them long! There are too many!” Jean gasped. She was already starting to shake. Scott cursed and yelled over the den, Jean was using too much of her power to maintain the link. 

“Kurt, get as many as you can out of here! Ororo, help me with this guy’s cage.” Scott gave out orders and sprinted for the silver kid’s cage. Kurt disappeared in a puff of blue smoke, taking the twins with him, as Ororo joined Scott to help him burn through the lock.

“Name’s Peter by the way.” The silver haired kid said, watching the lock slowly melt away under Scott’s gaze. Scott muttered to himself as Peter kept fidgeting around the cage. He wished the guy would just stay still and stop being so distracting. 

“Hurry!” Jean nearly cried, eyes streaming as the soldiers slowly started to move again. Scott almost glanced at her, but stopped himself just in time and a second later the lock melted to the floor. Peter gave an excited whoop and urged them on. 

“Come on, come on, almost there, just get the shackles off.” 

“Would you be quiet?” Scott hissed. Contrary to popular belief, looking at the same thing for an extended period of time wasn’t a walk in the park. Peter just shrugged as Scott worked on the manacles. 

“I don’t know, man, I’m not too good at-“ Peter cut of into a gut wrenching scream and collapsed to the ground in a twitching heap, clawing at the collar around his neck Scott failed to notice until it was so painfully brought to his attention. 

“GETITOFF!GETITOFF!GETITOFF!” He begged to anyone who would listen. Scott switched his visor shut before the laser took off Peter’s head and looked up in the direction of the shout from across the room.

“Get your damn hands off of my test subject!” Stryker yelled as he stormed into the room. Scott didn’t waste time in answering and focused back on Peter’s screaming self. He knew Stryker was marching towards them, but he tried his best to not spare him a glance. Without prompting, Ororo took to occupying the general as Scott finished off the collar. 

As soon as it snapped off, Peter sucked in a breath and pushed himself to his hands and knees. “Thanks, man.” He muttered and spit out a glob of blood. Scott offered him a hand up, but peter waved it away and stood shakily. 

“I’m fine, get Kitty and the rest out.” He said, though he was leaning on the bars for support. Scott only had a second to wonder who kitty was when another scream stole their attention as Jean reached the end of her stamina.

“No!” Scott’s arm shot out towards the redhead as her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed to the ground, but she never hit the floor. 

Peter caught her as she fainted, but fumbled under her weight. She wasn’t that heavy, but after the shock, literally, to his system, he wasn’t at peak running capacity. He did his best to ignore how his vision blurred as he zipped back over to Scott and laid the unconscious girl in his lap before turning his attention to the soldiers. They weren’t quite frozen from Peter’s point of view. He frowned to himself, that wasn’t normal, but he didn’t have time to dwell on the fact he wasn’t as fast as he usually was. 

He sped around to the guards and tossed their guns in a pile. As he switched to moving the soldiers to the empty holding cells, he stumbled and slammed into the side of one of the cages as the world sped up. 

Peter closed his eyes as the sound of screaming mutants and soldiers rushed back, now accompanied by their confused curses at finding themselves unarmed. Everything was too dang loud, he wished everyone would just shut up and leave his headache alone. He heard kitty scream and his eyes snapped open. Stryker pulled his gun and aimed at her in a desperate attempt to get John to stand down, who had by now sparked a couple fires and melted through his cell door. 

Peter pushed off the cage he clung too and prayed a silent thank you as the world slowed down again. He didn’t have much time. He stumbled through the guards and sent them flying in as many directions as he could. On his way by, he swiped Stryker’s gun and knocked him out with it. Severed the jerk right. Peter looked around at his handiwork and hoped it would be enough because he was out of steam. 

As time sped back up, he cherished the chaos the soldiers found themselves in before the exhaustion and malnutrition caught up with him. He barely managed to shoot John, Kitty, and Bobby as the darkness took over.


	18. Accepting an offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the rescue, Peter reunites with Jess and his mum and Charles extends his offer once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saturday update!! Only one more and then the post credit scene and trailer, which will probably be in the same chapter. I hope you all have enjoyed the first work in my series, and I’d love to hear any thoughts or questions. Enjoy:)

Peter snapped awake, expecting to find his legs still chained up, but the pressure around his ankles was gone for the first time in days. He sat up so fast his head swam as he remembered the events at the compound. The door crashing down, he collar switching on, and his little run that sapped what energy he had left right out of him. His hand instinctively went to his neck where the collar sat and he winced. The electrical burns were still fresh, but the collar itself was gone. Peter took a breath and looked around, forcing himself to take his shaking hands away from his throat. His eyes landed on the friendly face of the white haired girl sitting by his bed. 

“Hey, Peter, right?” The girl asked softly.

“Yeah” he said absentmindedly, still looking around at his surroundings. He was laying on a hospital gurney in the cargo bay of a plane, no, a jet. And from the feel of it, it was in the air. A surge of panic washed through Peter as he realized he and the girl where the only ones in the room. “Um, where am I? Did everyone make it out?! Where’re the kids!? Where’s Kitty?!”

“Calm down, everyone is fine, Kurt got us all out.”

“Kurt? Wait, who are you?”

“I’m Ororo, Kurt is one of the members of my team, you know, blue with the tail.” She waved her hand vaguely and sighed once Peter showed no sigh of understanding. She pushed him down back on the stretcher with a gentle hand. he was almost vibrating. “You need to stay on the bed, you’re completely drained and we don’t have an IV. We can get you some food when we get to the hospital.” 

“I need to run, I’ll go crazy if I don’t.” He swatted her arm away and tried to stand, only to find his legs didn’t hold him as collapsed onto ororo. She caught him and started laughing before Peter fully caught his breath. 

“Told you so.” She grinned down at him as she helped him back into the bed. 

Peter scowled but gave in. If he died from starvation before they reached wherever they were going, the rescue wouldn’t be nearly as effective. “Okay, if I can’t run I want everything explained to me right now.” He said. “Including where we are going and what this team of yours you were talking about.” He drummed his fingers on the bed as he restlessly awaited her answer. 

“We are going a hospital first of all to get everyone proper medical treatment, we can’t hold this many people in the medical bay of the school. Your mother reported you missing. And-“   
His head snapped up when she mentioned his mother. 

“She’s Okay?! How about Jess, did they both make it?! Do they have-“

“Yes, they are both fine, they are meeting us at the hospital with the professor.” 

“The Charles guy?”

“Yes, we call him Professor Xavier, he was the one that started our team: the X-Men.” 

Peter’s eyes widened in realization and he settled back on his gurney. “...Yeah, I’ve heard of you.”   
————————————————  
Hospitals are cold. A stupid, freezing level of cold that Peter was becoming all too accustomed to as he sat shivering on his bed still waiting on the food the red headed girl had promised. The hospital staff had been in a few times, but apparently they had other things to deal with that were more important than getting him the million burritos he’d asked for. He’d kill for a nice warm burrito right about now. 

Peter sighed to himself and tried not to scowl as he shivered again and pulled the thin blanket they had given him tighter around his shoulders. They had given it to him for something about shock, which yeah, being captured and electrocuted more than a few times would shock a person, but he didn’t see how a blanket would help with that. He was, though, as cold as an elephant in the Arctic, okay, maybe not that cold, but the point is: he’d take the blanket, shock, or no shock. 

Peter looked up uncharacteristically sluggishly when he heard someone entering his room above the beeping of his neighbor’s heart monitor. 

“Peter!” Jess shouted as she rushed in and sprinted over to the bed to tackle him. Peter bit in a cry of pain as she wrapped her arms around his neck. 

“Hey Jess. How’ve you been?” He said as loudly as he could, which was not much louder than a whisper. 

“You look awful.” She said, completely ignoring his question, and leaned back from their hug to get a better look at him. She squinted at him and pulled back in the hug. “You’re stupid, you know that? Why’d you just let them torture you??” 

“Shut up.” He hissed in her ear, “mum might hear you.” Peter nodded over to where Magda stood in the doorway, tears already Rolling down her face.

“Peter.” The word fell from her mouth. he almost winced at her broken tone. Without another word she walked to the bed and enveloped him and Jess in a bone-crushing hug. 

“I love you too mum, but please don’t squeeze my neck that hard. It kinda hurts.” Peter said with a wince. Magda pulled back suspiciously at his words and saw the dark electrical burns the collar left around his throat. The tears in her eyes came back instantly. 

“Ohh draga.” She whispered and wrapped her arms around him again, this time more carefully. “What did they do to you.” 

“Nothing I couldn’t handle mum. I’m fine, but I’m starving.” 

“Of course you are.” Jess muttered to herself and rolled her eyes. “You get rescued and the first thing you say is that you’re hungry.” 

“Don’t be like that Jess, run and get him some food before he wastes away, you know how he is.” Magda scowled at Jess, who groaned good naturedly and hopped off the bed to fetch whatever food the hospital carried. 

“You’re sure you’re fine? You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.” Magda asked and turned her attention back to Peter. He didn’t meet her gaze and just stared at the edge of the blanket he fiddled with. 

“Mum, I’ll be fine, I was only there for a few days.” He said and swallowed the lump in his throat. He shook his head and looked up at her again. “I’ll be fine.” A few days felt like a month to him. his mom knew it, but she didn’t push it, if he wanted to tell, he would. 

“Mmhmm...okay, if you say so.” 

Before Peter could try to convince his mum he was fine again, Jess return with a tray of cheeseburgers. 

“Here, your highness, the items you requested.” She grinned at Peter. “Luckily for you, the cafeteria in this place had some decent food.” 

“Thanks.” Peter said as she handed over the tray. For a split second he wished the burgers were burritos before the smell his his nose. He started on the first burger before Jess had backed after. Peter closed his eyes as he took a bite, torn between savoring it and wolfing down everything. He decided on wolfing it all down. The burgers warmed him up significantly, most likely from more calories to burn than the fact that the burgers themselves were warm, but Peter didn’t really care why and how they did it. He felt infinitely better after a good meal for a few minutes before the lack of sleep popped up and slapped him in the face. 

A few minutes after finishing the burgers, Peter started dozing off. He tried to stay awake, but Magda convinced him to take a nap, which only lasted about half an hour. The rest of the morning/afternoon was filled with card games and Peter dodging questions about what happened at the base. Eventually, Jess and Magda gave up asking and settled for playing war with an increasingly fidgety Peter. 

A couple hours, and many board games later, Magda left with Jess to take her to soccer practice. They didn’t intend to go, but Peter insisted that he was fine (which got an eye roll out of Jess) and he would prefer Jess makes it to practice rather than stay in the boring hospital with him. 

After their departure he spent a five very long, boring, five minutes wishing he hadn’t told them to leave when the hum of wheels came from the doorway. Peter looked over to see the teenagers who had raided the base standing awkwardly by the door as Charles Xavier rolled in behind them. 

“Hello peter.” The telepath began as he wheeled himself over to Peter’s bedside. “How are you feeling?” 

Peter shrugged and got hung up for a second on how horrible it would be to be wheelchair bound like the professor was before he came up with a reply. “Not horrible.” He shrugged again. “but I’ve been better.” 

Charles laughed slightly. “Well that’s to be expected, you’ve been through quite a lot recently.” 

“Yeah, I know.” Peter said and moved to rest his chin on his knees and went back to toying with his shoelace. “I want to thank you again for bailing me out of jail a couple weeks ago, I really appreciate it, and, you know, rescuing me from that Stryker guy.” Charles nodded and shot the x men an apologetic glance when they gave him different levels of confused looks. 

“Don’t mention it. And it wasn’t exactly ‘bailing you out’ you were released legally, everything was above board...” He gave the x men another glance and waved his hand dismissing the fact. “Ohh that’s not important.” He whispered to himself. “Though, I am interested is re-extending my offer i made earlier. I want you to join the x men.” 

Peter sat there in shock (he needed the blanket for that now, he guessed) as he processed what Charles just said. After what happened with Stryker, the x men offer had completely left his mind. The same dip of dread came back just like when Charles asked him the first time. It wasn’t that being a superhero didn’t sound cool, but being a superhero meant more attention from people like Stryker. Peter wasn’t exactly opposed to attention, heck, he craved it half the time, but there was a certain kind of a attention everyone avoided. Being kidnapped was one of those types. The thought of it made Peter’s stomach twist, but then the it occurred to him, as an x man, he’d be the one pulling people out of that situation. There were added risks, of course, but...

“I’ll do it.” 

Charles smiled and chuckled “I don’t want you to feel forced into this, take some time to think it over and-“ 

“I’ve had time to think it over,” Peter cut Charles off. “two seconds is plenty of time.” 

Charles stared at Peter for a moment before laughing again. “While I’m glad you’ve, um, accepted the offer, I don’t want you to rush into-“ 

“No, no, trust me, Professor, I’ve had time to think and...I’ve spent enough time picking the wrong fights, you know? There’s something bigger than Twinkies and video games to use my powers for....I want to do this.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah...I’m sure.”


	19. Welcome to the team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter finally gets to go to the mansion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing Monday!! To be honest, writers block kicked me in the butt. Anyway, Peter finally reaches the mansion and this is where the team fic starts. Because I missed Monday, I’m going to post both this chapter and the post credit scene/trailer today. I split them up because 1) it felt better. 2) it makes an even 20 chapters which makes me happy. I’d love to know what you thought of the first story in the series, thanks for reading!

Peter skidded to a stop in the driveway outside of a Victorian Style mansion and pulled out the business card Xavier had given him to make sure he was in the right place. Just a few days ago, he was discharged from the hospital. Originally, he wanted to jump up and head for the mansion immediately, but Magda convinced him to spend a few days at home with Jess and herself. Boy was it worth it. 

Peter watched the gravel he had kicked into the air settle to the ground as time sped back up. He ran his hand through his hair to smooth it down after the run and skipped up the mansion’s front steps to knock. Magda and Jess were on their way to check the school out. Magda tried to get Peter to ride with them but after he told her it was a four hour drive, she gave in. 

The mansion door swung open to a guy Peter hadn’t seen before, about the same height as himself but several years older with glasses. 

“You must be Peter.” The guy said and extended his hand for Peter to shake. The speedster nodded and got distracted by how firm the man’s handshake was before he remembered his manners. 

“Yeah, and you are?” 

“Hank, I’m in charge of the X men tech, among other things.” 

“Ah cool,” Peter said as he showed him inside. Peter resisted the urge to speed off and explore the mansion by himself. Kids ran through the halls, screaming and laughing at the same time. Peter couldn’t help but smile as a familiar face pulled away from a group of kids and came running towards him. 

“Peter!!” 

“Hey kitty!” Peter grinned as she wrapped his legs in a viselike hug. She looked up at him with a stupidly wide smile.

“I’m so happy you’re here!! Come on! John and Bobby have been waiting for you!” She grabbed his hand and started pulling him down the hall. Peter shot Hank a glance, but the older mutant waved him on. Peter grinned again and lifted Kitty onto his shoulders as she led him down the hall. 

She guided him to one of the only doors in the mansion he could see that was closed. he knocked with Kitty still perched on his shoulders. The professor’s voice called him in. 

The room, as it turned out, was an office. As Peter entered, everyone inside turned to him. 

“Welcome the my school, Peter.” Charles said, “and hello Kitty.” She giggled and waved back the the professor. As she did that, Peter took the chance to look around the room. John and Bobby were there, along with the mutants who raided the base and a blonde haired woman Peter didn’t recognize. 

“Thanks for the invite, prof...So, what is this?” Peter asked and nodded around at everyone. 

“A team meeting, Peter, welcome to the x men.”


	20. Post credit scene and Trailer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tis what the title sounds like.

POST CREDIT SCENE  
Peter grinned and laughed a little. “Well, Professor, if you don’t mind me saying so, I think we’re missing someone.” He said and set kitty down. Charles raised an eyebrow and joined in Peter’s slight laughter.

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, Mum and Jess aren’t here yet.” 

Charles looked even more confused for a moment before realization dawned on his face. “You don’t mean...”

Peter laughed again nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean.”  
...........................................................  
TWO DAYS EARLIER.... 

Jess sat up straight in bed and yawned as she stretched. For the first time in several days she didn’t feel the dread of knowing Peter was missing. He was safe, asleep in his room downstairs, but for some reason she felt like adrenaline was pumped through her system. Jess yawned again and glanced over at the alarm clock on her bedside table: 10:32. 

‘How did I sleep through my alarm?’ She thought as she kicked the covers off herself and hopped out of bed. Jess yawned and stretched again. For some reason her legs felt stiff. Maybe she was growing? 

Jess slumped to the bathroom and her nose scrunched up in disgust.  
“If Peter doesn’t clean this bathroom before he leaves I swear-“ she froze as she looked in the mirror. “Mum? Mum!!”

Jess didn’t process that Magda had heard her until she appeared in the doorway with her face creased with worry.  
“Are you okay?! Did you throw up? What’s-“ Magda’a mouth opened and closed for a second with no sound coming out before she found her voice. “Peter!” 

Peter beside Magda in an instant.

“What is it mum?” He asked, but Magda just raised her hand out towards Jess in answer. 

“What, mum-“ Peter froze just as Jess did when he saw he for only a split second before he punched the air in victory. “Yes! I knew it!” He did a little happy dance in the doorway and zipped up over to Jess to whisper in her ear “I knew it.” 

Jess didn’t answer. She still stood open mouthed by the mirror, her entire head of hair an identical shade of silver as Peter’s.  
—————————————————————  
X MEN APOCALYPSE TRAILER  
(Each little “....” is like a scene switching in a trailer.) 

“I know you’re here, my lord. Give me a sign.” The earth shook under the worshipper’s feet. “give me a sign!” She called. “LEAD ME TO YOU.” The mutant called on the fullness of her powers and the wall in front of her shifted. She gasped at the damp air that released with the rocks as the crumbled in front of her. Without care of what debris she may be breathing in she squeezed through the small hole in the earth.  
.......  
“RISE AGAIN EN SABAH NUR AND BRING FORTH THE APOCALYPSE!!”  
.......  
“Explain to me again why we have training two weeks from Christmas.” Peter crossed his arms and leaned on the control panel hank was playing with. “All the normal schools get a few weeks off.” 

“Because unlike Charles.” Hank spun around to face the team. “I think the earthquake was caused by a mutant and I want you to be ready.” He reached behind him and flipped a switch. From the back wall of the danger room and quiet whirring started.  
...............  
John sighed and looked up at Hank. “Something weird is happening, and I think its part of my mutation”  
..............  
“Okay, let’s try this again, focus on my speed and match it, even when I stop.” Peter instructed Jess as he laced up his snow boots. “And try not to run into anyone else, you could really hurt them with super speed, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry. Now you said to match your speed? just like cruse Control?” Jess said. She jumped up from the couch and offered peter a hand up. 

“Exactly.”  
.............  
“It’s exploding, Jess, the mansion is exploding.” Peter stopped long enough to grab her by the shoulder. “Stay here.”  
...........  
“Maximoff.” Stryker smirked. “Welcome back.”  
...........  
From inside the pyramid came a beastly roar that made everyone turn. Apocalypse was awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eheheheh, EHEHEHEH, oh yes, guys, that. Just. Happened. I’m taking a week off writing, I think, so X men apocalypse will start next Wednesday. :)


	21. Writer’s ask list!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m board, but I have horrible writer’s block and artists block, so drawing and writing are kind of flopping at the moment for me. I doubt anyone will be too interested in this, but I’ll give it a shot. Comment with a number and a character if the question applies and I’ll answer ASAP

1\. Do you write outside of fanfiction?   
2\. How many WIP do you have?   
3\. What’s your favorite fandom?  
4\. Do you have plans for you current wip that are way in the future? Can you give us a peak?   
5\. Characters’ favorite color?  
6\. What is your favorite genre to read and/or write?  
7\. Which characters are you most/least like?  
8\. Which Character wasn’t supposed to be nice/good/likeable but captured your heart immediately?  
9\. What is your process for picking names for your Characters?  
10\. What’s your favorite kind of villain?  
11\. What’s your favorite kind of hero?   
12\. Do any characters you write have bad or gross habits?  
13\. If your wip had a fandom of its own what would you want it to be like?   
14\. What tropes, if any, do you find yourself writing more often than others?  
15\. What writing advice held you back as a writer?  
16\. Do you make playlists for your wip?  
17\. What writing advice has helped you grow recently as a writer?  
18\. List five positive things that you like about yourself as a writer.  
19\. Which of the characters are you personally attracted to? (We all know this happens even if we try to deny it)  
20\. Which of your OCs could greatly benefit from therapy?  
21\. The team has to read a character’s handwriting. What is it like?  
22\. Which character is most likely to lose their train of thought?  
23\. If a character had a very specific hyperfixation what would it be?  
24\. What’s a hobby or talent a character has that is unexpected/is your own head canon?   
25\. Do you prefer to share your are work online or in real conversation?


End file.
